http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2008/edition_05-18-2008/1What_It_Takes_To_Be_a_LeaderPublished: May 18, 2008
Adapted from “A Time to Fight” © Jim Webb (Broadway Books, 2008). Read the full chapter.
There are still moments when I look back and see the little boy’s brown eyes and the curled corpse of the grandfather whose last thought had been to save him. I will never forget them, nor should I. The An Hoa Basin filled us all with a lifetime of such stories.
When you have personalized death, looked into the eyes of innocent people as the life drained out of them, watched lives torn apart not once but hundreds of times—friends, enemies and those caught in between—it brings not only sadness but also an oddly stubborn wisdom. When you have watched an enemy fight with ferocity and often with honor, you tend to conclude that on some level you have more in common with those you were trying to kill than you do with people who view wars only as an intellectual debate. And when you have served among good people, fellow Marines, some of whom you came to love with the same intensity as you do your own family, there are few others you will meet in your lifetime who can ever gain that same level of trust and respect.
As the colonel intimated in his talk, a sense of accountability is the burden of leadership, whether in combat or on Capitol Hill. When you have the authority to make decisions, you inherit the responsibility to accept the consequences and the obligation to use your authority for the common good.
What has this got to do with the politics of today?
Everything.
Our country is in the middle of a profound crisis. This crisis has many causes, but much of it has been brought about by poor leadership decisions at every level of government. In addition, our electoral process is dominated by financial interests that are threatened by the very notion of reform.
Elections shouldn’t be media circuses, nor should they be auctions where a candidate sells himself to the highest bidder. They should be moral contracts between those who wish to lead and those who are consenting to be led.
What, then, must we do?
In one form or another, this question is asked daily in every community and in almost every household around the world. In authoritarian societies, it’s whispered; in others, it is debated. In America, we quite frankly find ourselves doing a little of both.
Our challenges lie in improving the way we’ve been selecting our leaders. To the American voters, I offer this advice: Be as shrewd and ruthless in your demands on our leaders as the wizards running campaigns are in their strategies to get your vote. Do your part to send to Washington people who truly want to solve the problems of this country from the bottom up.
You won’t regret it. You will benefit from it. And the stakes could not be higher. Sometimes the business of politics seems silly. It can also be infuriating. But you must stay in the game, because you and your grandchildren will be the inheritors of both our successes and flaws.
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