Leaders and Fear

Today I've been meditating on a question: should we allow ourselves to be led by fear, or led by those who have mastered fear?

Of course I am questioning the Bush administration. Conservative pundits have already asserted, indeed the press followed them from his first presidential campaign, that George the Younger is decisive, resolute. He shows no fear.

Yet it was widely accepted in the psychological community long before W came along that an excess of machismo generally signals an internal fear of impotence. No, not necessarily the sexual kind; this merely refers to one's fund of personal power. It has been known for at least two millenia in Eastern writings that one cannot give what one does not have, and if one hasn't mastered one's own fears then one cannot lead through fears.

Fear isn't evidence of doubt. It isn't evidence of a lack of courage. Indeed, the denial of doubt is breeding grounds for fear, to say nothing of the death of the search for wisdom. Courage is merely making good decisions and acting on them in the face of fear. The inability to admit to doubt, the inability to show imperfections, is evidence that one is putting a lot of energy into a false image.

"I try to put faith in my doubts," Albus Dumbledore said to Harry Potter. How strange, that a fictional character in eight words surpasses the wisdom of so many world leaders.

A study of dolphins a few years back determined that they are able to doubt. The authors of the study, whose names I regrettably didn't record, extrapolated that doubt is the foundation for knowledge, which in turn -- if used right -- is part of the equation for wisdom. My own observation is that knowledge has to be tempered with experience, an orientation to reality, and the ability to see things on a very large level in order to be transformed to wisdom. At the base of it, though, if there is no question then there is no pursuit of answers. For a national leader to display no doubt would mean that he is not looking for answers. All he has is his own opinion and bias. Does anybody know a human who knows everything well enough?

As we march toward national elections in November, maybe it would be a good marker to say that when one leads by fear then he or she hasn't resolved fears of impotence. If one leads by teaching others to master fears -- most likely seen by a willingness to share power -- then one has mastered his or her own fears. Who would we rather have leading us?