In the Trenches: Leaders and leadership: Is something missing?

It's become an energizing habit of mine to attend the annual Summer University organized by the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS). Hundreds of young people from across Europe gather in a picturesque spot for a week of studying and socializing.

This year, I addressed the students on the subject of leadership. When I asked them to identify individuals currently in the public arena - elected officials, moral voices, persons of conscience - whom they admired, there was a moment's silence. Then came a torrent of names. But when put to a vote, only four people enjoyed any widespread support. Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama ranked at the top, followed by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Strikingly absent from the list were current Israeli or Jewish leaders. When I pointed this out, a few names from the past were invoked, above all, Moses, who was regarded with near awe. Theodor Herzl, David Ben-Gurion, and Hannah Senesh were also among those who inspired admiration. But no one from the contemporary world of politicians, rabbis, and intellectuals made the cut, though, personally, I think some important names like Elie Wiesel were overlooked.

Maybe the young people needed more advance notice to ponder a question that many said they'd never before been asked.

Or maybe it takes time to determine whether some current leaders have staying power and star quality. Wasn't it Harry Truman, whose own stock has been steadily rising in the years since his presidency ended, who said that "a statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years"?

Or maybe they were simply reflecting their view of contemporary reality. If so, that doesn't augur well for the Jewish future.

Our discussion largely focused on Europe and Israel. My impression was that Israeli politics today - hmmm, said the students when the subject arose - doesn't enjoy the best of reputations. And few religious leaders are seen as inspiring beyond their pulpits, much less across denominational lines. Among intellectuals and cultural figures, it was noted, how many are ready to stand up and motivate Jews to be proud of their identity and heritage?

It was a dispiriting, if revealing, conversation.

To state the obvious, leaders remain an indispensable part of the equation in the Jewish world. Effective leadership provides inspiration and motivation. The total becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Seemingly, anything becomes possible.

We need leaders to make the case for being Jewish in the twenty-first century, when religion increasingly has become a competitive marketplace and being Jewish has, in effect, become a choice, not an obligation.

We need leaders knowledgeable in our faith and heritage, able to convey the beauty and range of Jewish tradition in ways that are open-minded, compelling, and meaningful.

We need leaders who can give voice to the transcendent ties that unite us as a people.

We need leaders to speak to the larger world about Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and its yearning for peace with its neighbors.

We need leaders to confront the very real threat to Israel's existence posed by the approaching marriage of radical Islam and weapons of mass destruction.

We need leaders to address Israel's internal challenges of political sclerosis, religious-secular tensions, Jewish-Arab relations, and the rich-poor divide.

We need leaders to protect the memory of the Shoah, above all when its survivors and eyewitnesses will no longer be with us, and to guard against the resurgence of anti-Semitism in any form.
 
We need leaders to chart future relations with Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, as well as navigate the growing multiculturalism of the Diaspora countries in which Jews live. In a world of accelerating political, economic, and demographic change, we need leaders who know not only where we're coming from, but also have a grasp of where we ought to go - and how we can get there.

What are the qualities that best constitute a leader?

There are many, I believe. It would be impossible, human frailties being what they are, to find leaders who possess them all.

That said, apart from the specifics of Jewish passion, knowledge, and pride, my bottom-line choices are: courage, vision, principle, openness, responsibility, and humility.

The lives of three public leaders - Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Harry Truman - illustrate the universal nature of these traits.

To be sure, each had his shortcomings. Churchill and humility, for example, weren't exactly a perfect match. But all three rose to the ultimate tests of leadership in defining historical moments - Lincoln before and during the American Civil War; Churchill during the "gathering storm" and throughout World War II; and Truman in the struggle to define the postwar period, which included his recognition of the new State of Israel.

Of courage, Winston Churchill famously said: "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others."

Of vision, Abraham Lincoln, stated in his Gettysburg Address: "It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here, have, thus far, so nobly advanced ... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that, government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Vision requires an outlook and the means to articulate it. But Churchill, himself a visionary and communicator extraordinaire, cautioned, "It's a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time."

A leader's vision also needs a team that believes in it and works harmoniously to achieve it. Dean Acheson noted in Present at the Creation that Harry Truman had "the gift of vitality," "bounce and cheerfulness," and an inexhaustible capacity for work. "These are qualities of a leader who builds esprit de corps," Acheson wrote. "He expected, and received, the loyalty he gave."

Of principle, Churchill said: "So long as I am acting from duty and conviction, I am indifferent to taunts and jeers."

And Lincoln commented: "I desire to conduct the affairs of this administration that if, at the end ... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall have at least one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me."
 
Of openness, Lincoln said to General Benjamin Butler, who had opposed his electoral bid but whom Lincoln nonetheless promoted, "When you see me do something that for the good of the country ought not to be done, come and tell me so, and why you think so, and then perhaps you won't have any chance to resign your commission."

And Dean Acheson noted, "President Truman's strength lay not only in knowing that he was the President and that the buck stopped with him, but that neither he nor the White House staff was the Secretary of State, or Defense, or Treasury, or any other... He made the ultimate decisions upon full and detailed knowledge, leaving to lieutenants the execution." Acheson also said of Truman: "He held his own ideas in abeyance until he had heard and weighed the ideas of others, alert and eager to gain additional knowledge and new insights."

Of responsibility, the motto on Harry Truman's desk said it best: "The buck stops here."

And it was a distinguishing quality of Lincoln's as well. Doris Kearns Goodwin, in Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, wrote that "as always, the president refused to let a subordinate take the blame for his own decisions."

Of humility, Acheson wrote of Truman: "Free of the greatest vice in a leader, his ego never came between him and his job. He saw his job and its needs without distortion from that astigmatism."

And Kearns quoted Lincoln, who was to take a boat trip to visit General Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War, telling the vessel's commander that "he wanted no luxuries but only plain, simple food and ordinary comfort...."

During this Jewish holiday season of introspection, and year-round, there's a crying need to study and practice the essence of leadership.

And there's an impressive generation of young Jews coming along that's watching and waiting. They're eager to absorb the example and one day pass it along in this remarkable narrative we call the Jewish journey.