This post is not about any specific leader or politician but the differences between the two character types. What is at the core of each of these character types that radiates outward into beliefs, talents, organic skills, and ultimately behaviors? What makes them different?
At the core, the leader establishes something new, a vision for a new field of endeavor, and brings the unmanifest into being. Einstein’s geometric reinterpretation of the universe had not been seen before. He made it manifest. He saw what had been there all along but not visible until he made it so. Shakespeare’s wordplay was and is unique to him to the point that he invented over 1700 words or word phrases that hadn’t existed before.
The leader’s vision does not appear out of whole cloth. It emerges out of his or her time. No matter how brilliant someone may be the ground must be plowed in advance, otherwise the elements are not available to be intuited and integrated into the new vision. In this sense there is no such thing as “a visionary” or “a genius.” Progress, initiated by the vision, is fundamentally a communal process expressed through an individual. Newton, for example, said “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
The principle gift the leader possesses allows him/her not only to see a bit further but to grasp the meaning of what he/she has seen. The vision eclipses and transforms what has come before.
Visions need not be only majestic. They can and do exist every day. For example, a bottleneck appears slowing the progress of some process and production declines or even stops. This occurs in all fields from manufacturing---on an assembly line---to creative writing---writer’s block--- to professional sports---a batting slump---and something must occur to release forward movement. Someone brings a vision of a new way forward, a course of action that transcends what has come before, and the bottleneck is freed allowing forward movement to continue. Vision leadership exists as a matter of scale.
At the core the politician is a policy maker, a legislator who operates in an already established area of doing. The word “politician” derives from the ancient Greek word “polis’ which literally means city but extends to mean society and governance. Other words that derive from polis are “policy” “police” and “politics.” A politician at core is a rule maker.
A politician creates alliances and allegiances in order to GSD---get stuff done. He/she is in charge of managing what already exists, concerned more about maneuvering and manipulating (in the positive sense) then charting new territories. Whereas both the leader and politician grasp the dynamics among the elements and/or members of an endeavor, the politician’s seminal task is to administer and oversee the working of a given group in order to achieve particular predetermined outcomes. So the politician’s view is at ground level, in the weeds, as it is known.
In 1963 John Kennedy called for the Civil Rights Act---legislation he said would provide “all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments."
But it was Lyndon Johnson, the consummate politician, who used the power of his knowledge of the workings of Congress as well as the social and emotional dynamics of the times to organize and move that body toward the passage of the bill. In doing so he relied on his skill to wrangle and handle the various personalities to form a unity that otherwise would not have held. Kennedy called for the legislation but Johnson made it happen.
Can a leader, as I define it, be a politician? Yes, but the combination is infrequent. Can a politician be a leader? Of course, but again the combination is infrequent, because he or she by character is more attracted to the nuts and bolts of carrying out operations than that of dreaming, musing, envisioning what is not yet in practice.
How do you distinguish between the two character types?
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