6.3.4.1  Leadership Responsibilities and Styles        

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Political leaders – Prime Ministers and Presidents – have more responsibilities than other politicians: they manage the government team, they personify the government in the eyes of the people, and they represent their countries in international affairs.  The behavioural requirements for a political leader are therefore more demanding than those described in the previous section (6.3.3) for other politicians:

·      Responsiveness in a leader means listening to the members of their team as well as to popular demands.  They also need to take account of international pressures.

·      Competence in a leader also has an international dimension, whereas most other members of the government team have a purely domestic focus.

·      Integrity is even more important for a leader than for other politicians, because the team takes its moral tone from its leader; for example, it would be impossible to root out corruption in a society whose leader was corrupt.

·      Political leaders might often have strong views and a clear vision of what they want to achieve.  They have to be self-confident, to inspire others to follow them.  Charismatic leaders can inspire the population and strengthen a country’s morale. 

Some leaders dominate the government team as visionaries, directing the way ahead, whereas others act more as team managers; Clement Attlee, for example, was famously modest but his government achieved a lot.[1]  Charismatic leadership is necessary in wartime, or to persuade doubters to accept policies, but responsiveness and prudence are also important.  There is always the risk that a leader's self-confidence can transmute into hubris – and there are problems in what is described below as 'personality politics' (6.3.4.2); one way of averting this is to limit terms of office (6.3.4.3).   Leadership personalities are partly determined by problems in the selection process (6.3.4.4).

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