"Leadership" and whatnot

This is a little late, but inspired by a post by Trinity about the word "leader", and also how concepts of leadership relate to D/s.

I think people have a tendency to decide that dominant folks in the BDSM sense are "natural leaders" and that's never made sense to me.

I think I probably agree with this statement, in that there is nothing about one's BDSM orientation (or lack thereof) that is either sufficient or necessary for one's role in the rest of society at large. Some of the most Dominant folks can be the most timid in any other situation.

Trinity then offers some suggestions for what the term "leader" means:

A leader can be any number of things: an effective military commander, a gifted teacher, a loving parent, a charismatic inciter of protests (hell, if all we're looking at is "can get people to follow her", a charismatic inciter of RIOTS works too), a disciplined trainer, a manager skilled at organizing and delegating tasks, a person who sticks to her principles and in so doing inspires others, a role model, a person with "command presence," a person skilled at winning in direct confrontations

However, I think I need to pick this list apart a bit.

For example, "an effective military commander" need not be a particularly good leader; battles and wars are won by good tactics and an overall strategy, which are then implemented by one's troops. How one gets those troops to do as they are told is immaterial. While Alexander the Great may have inspired his troops by his own example, other successful ancient civilisations were successful by far more brutal methods.

"A gifted teacher" does not strike me as "leading", but only as communicating. While she may very well be inspirational, and cause her pupils to go on to greater things, she herself does not lead.

"A loving parent" is also not a role that sits well with my conception of a "leader", and once again I see the role as potentially inspirational, but it is one that inspires someone else to be potentially a leader themselves, but does not actually involve being a leader.

It seems to me that "a disciplined trainer" is again someone who puts others in the place to be leaders. I can think of counter-examples, whereby through disciplined training people can end up feeling a sense of loyalty for the trainer, and be willing to follow them (the Are You Tough Enough for the SAS? television programme on the BBC demonstrated this when a collectyion of civilian volunteers were tested by an SAS sergeant to see if they might come close to passing the selection trials that SAS candidates must endure - by the end of the course, the civilians were saying that they would follow him and his orders no matter what they were). However, I do not think that it is necessary that "a disciplined trainer" will also be a good leader.

When it comes to being "a manager skilled at organizing and delegating tasks", I think that the defining feature is in fact manager and not "leader". To my mind, the leader is the one who decides where you're going, and the manager described here is the one who sets the course. I recently re-watched the episode of West Wing, "Let Bartlet be Bartlet" and this distinction is made very clear in the conclusion there: Bartlet (President) is the leader, and McGarry (Chief of Staff) is the manager. Those are their jobs, and the roles that those jobs encompass.

I think that "a person skilled at winning in direct confrontations" is unlikely to fit my idea of a leader. If the confrontations are physical, then it makes them a good fighter. If they are verbal, then she is either a good debater or else simply stubborn.

That leaves the following as people whom I think might fit the term "leader":

• a person who sticks to her principles and in so doing inspires others,
• a role model,
• a person with "command presence,"
• a charismatic inciter of protests (hell, if all we're looking at is "can get people to follow her", a charismatic inciter of RIOTS works too)

It's worth looking again at the concepts that seem to be common to these ideas, and also at the concepts that are encapsulated in the suggestions that I rejected.

I frequently mentioned "inspiration" as a quality possessed by some of the types of people rejected, and that term also appears explicitly in the above list as well.

Managers and military commanders, and perhaps "command presence", all involve being in charge, and making decisions. This sense of being "in charge" I think is for some people sufficient to describe someone as being a "leader". To my mind it is not sufficient, but it is I think a necessary component of the term.

In fact, looking at the rejections, it appears that some (like the military commander) I rejected for not "inspiring", and others (like the teacher) I rejected for not "being in charge" in the sense of making the decisions for others.

Two quotations from popular culture:

In 2010, the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clark had a character remark that, "A leader can be right, or can be wrong, but must never be uncertain" - i.e a leader must be able to make decisions and act upon them. I should add at this point that this does not preclude a leader canvassing opinions from her followers, but having heard those opinions, she makes the decision firmly.

In West Wing, Vice-President Bob Russell says, "A leader with no followers is just a guy taking a walk." That is, a leader is someone whose decisions carry the respect of others so that they go along with them (by choice and not by coercion).

The thing common to all the things I marked as possibly being "leadership", is that they are all active roles - the principled person who inspires others is someone who is leading by example, and remains a figure in the events, as does the role model. The inciter of protest participates in the protest herself, or else quickly loses the inspirational role.

Therefore, my conception of a leader is someone who is actively involved, is taking charge (or making decisions) and who inspires others to follow those decisions.

Now, I personally think that making decisions is a central part of being a Dominant. Others disagree, and while I suspect some of that may come down to different conceptions of the words, it also suggests different conceptions of Dominance also, and so to declare it an essential, or necessary, part of Dominance would be premature. I don't think there can be much controversy over a Dominant being actively involved (even where not being physically involved, I believe a Dominant's mind must always be at the forefront and actively engaged with what is going on). However, I think "inspires others" is definitely not an essential part of being a Dominant.

At first glance, in the romanticised version of Domhood, "inspiring" obedience is heavily stressed and idolised. And there are certainly D/s relationships where the Submissive partner feels inspired by hir love for hir Dominant to test hir limits and push beyond what zie might otherwise have believed hirself capable or willing to experience. However, I think we need to draw away from these romanticised views.

As implied above, I think that "inspiration" in the sense that is being used here carries at least a small connotation of "motivating to pushing oneself further", wither for 'the cause" or out of Submission, or some other reason. To me, it implies "what I was once unwilling to do, I now feel gladly willing to do". Again, while this plays a large role in the romanticised "erotic literature" surrounding BDSM, and while many long-term couples do report such inspiration occurring, I do not feel that it is in any way central or required of D/s, and in fact in some ways it might seem questionable in terms of the relationship with informed consent.

To my mind, whereas a leader inspires hir followers to some new action, and thus draws followers to herself, in a D/s setting it is the Submissive partner who seeks out a Dominant and agrees willingly and eagerly to accept the obedient role. The Submissive is inspired by no one to do this, except perhaps by her own sexuality (and that is perhaps a different usage of "inspiration" anyway). A Dominant clearly does not need the qualities of a leader to "inspire".

I have one other thought on this, to explain why, if Dominants need not be leaders, equally, a leader need not make a good Dominant:

It seems to me that leadership is inherently an impersonal relationship, however close people may feel to their leader. A leader is someone who projects her talent as a leader to many others, and who inevitably has a hierarchical relationship to those others. Also, it is all about shaping interactions with the outside world.

D/s on the other hand is inherently a personal relationship: it is about the interaction of two (or possibly more) people on a personal level, about their personal desires and how those mesh together within the relationship itself. It need not have any external dimension at all, and while the roles are different within the relationship, in order for it to be stable the partners must recognise one another as being equal and not hierarchical.

Therefore, the skills that make one a good leader are not necessarily going to be any use in making one a good Dominant.