Volume 11, Issue 10, page 7

By JAMES W. WELGOS
N OUR SOCIETY, we have bosses who oversee our efforts to keep us on our
toes during the day. We have lawyers,
doctors, and various other kinds of
"authorities" to whom we turn with
varying degrees of awe and whose word we
take as they give it -- decrees which rule
our various moments. We marry a mate who
insists on dominating our every waking
moment. And so time and again we repeat
an old, old pattern which enables writers
to write, with good evidence, that mankind is always looking for a "head man"
to lead him out of his difficulties.

Almost all men are sheep to some degree.
The authorities have their own authorities.
There are but a few highly creative people in
the world who turn out the ideas that all the
rest of mankind follows. Hitler's attempt to
establish the German people' s superiority was
an ill masked attempt to have himself looked
upon as the supreme authority for all. The
same is true of other attempts at the establishment of a dictatorial regime. There is a
very real quality in being respected to such a
degree.

If we are to look into the qualities which
make up a leader, we must examine a most unusual array of capabilities. There are few who
have all of the qualities. The average run
have some of the qualities. But there is none
who lacks the inherent capacity of being able
to develop all the capabilities necessary.

To be a leader a man must be willing to do
his own work. This is a quality which is gradually being molded by time. There was a time
when a very high degree of emphasis was placed
upon this willingness to work, but when maD chinery began to loom larger in our lives, a
W perversion took place which lessened the need
pq for willingness. This change upset the balance
between labor and production. However, the
need for willingness is once again being recognized and emphasized, and in more quarters
these days than was made thru the 1930's and
1940's. A man who willingly turns his work out
day after day and successfully accomplishes
his task without complaint is one who will be
If raised gradually into more responsible positions.
7 One could ask whether a leader should exCl feaet wUtks
to Potect Nets
pect others to do work for him which he does
not know how to do. Our own feeling on this is
that a leader's time is very valuable. He is
often the creative spark which guides an organization. But a man who is not willing to
spend his time learning how to do the jobs he
molds into an organization is a shadow-figure
of a leader. He should know how to do every
job that comes under his jurisdiction. He need
not be fully skilled in every job in his plant,
but he should have a better than average
knowledge. If he does, he will understand the
problems of those under him, and will be able
to appreciate the work they turn out and their
ideas for improving the efforts of the organization. If he does not, he will not be able to
be creative with the organizational organism,
and large numbers of creative opportunities
will pass him by.

Does this then mean that a man who is a
willing worker can be a leader? Of course not.
Willingness is but one of the qualities of the
master. A slave must also be willing if he is
not to feel the lash regularly. A leader is
driven by the lash of his desire for others; a
slave thinks only of his own safety and comfort. This sort of framework gives us a key to
another quality in those who become leaders.

A leader is one who is able to make ideas
into reality. He is able to take the present
reality and mold it into something which will
solve other problems and bring realness to
never-before-existing creations. The slave is
one who has this very same quality within himself but limits his growth by taking from others only what they have created to solve problems. The slave does not live in a world of
spontaneity. He lives in the past with the
fruits of others. The leader creates fruits
for the slaves to live by. This, of course, is
saying that the leader is creative from moment
to moment, as the need arises. Slaves pull up
solutions that have been used by others in the