PART I: The Evaluation of National Political Leadership and Followership: By Ronald F. White, Ph.D.

 In the next two blogs I will introduce several philosophical concepts intended to elucidate the nature and nurture organizational leadership theory: organizations, political organizations, hierarchies, leaders/followers, dominance/submission, and totalitarian/democratic regimes. PART I. will explain the basics of organizational leadership theory. PART II. I will then apply that body of theory to evaluate the leadership of Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy and in the context of Russia's bombing of Ukraine. 

There are many animal species that naturally collectively "organize themselves" hierarchically, based on leadership and followership.   All organizations serve ends or purposes, therefore, we evaluate them based on how effective those organizations are at achieving those specified goals, and how efficient those organizations are at fulfilling them. Similarly, organizational hierarchies are organized based on leadership and followership. Typically hierarchies distribute resources and/or information within specific organizations. Within those hierarchies, the lives of individual leaders and followers are shaped by those who are are situated both "higher" and "lower" within those hierarchies.

Organizational hierarchies are inexorably contextual. We all lead and/or follow in various contexts. Over the course of our lives, we all voluntarily enter/exit organizations as both leaders and as followers. We do so based on our prevailing beliefs. Sometimes our beliefs are true and sometimes they are false. Good Leaders pursue ends or purposes that they believe will advance the collective interests of their organizations over the short-run and/or the long-run. Bad Leaders, either:1.) seek to advance the their own personal interests and/or the interests of their family and friends, or. 2.) seek to advance praiseworthy organizational goals but do so ineffectively and/or inefficiently. Moreover, the pursuit of our individual and collective beliefs take place over time, over both, the short-term and/or the long-term. However, sometimes the pursuit of our individual/collective short-term interests conflicts with the pursuit of our long-term interests and visa versa. Organizations often compete with one another or cooperate with each other, which may impact membership and organizational effectiveness and/or efficiency.  Thus, some competing and/or cooperative organizations are more effective and/or effective over the short-run or long-run than others. In an ideal world, over the long-run, the most effective and efficient organizations survive and the least effective and least efficient organizations suffer extinction. And, over the long-run, the most  effective/efficient leaders tend to survive (maintain power) and the least effective/efficient leaders do not. 

Most political organizations employ either autocratic leadership or democratic leadership. Autocratic leaders gain/sustain power via the use, or threat, of coercive power, and must be skilled at the manipulation of disinformation. Autocrats remain in power by the use/threat of coercive force and by controlling the leaders/followers within both the military and the media. Democratic Leaders rise to and fall from power via follower consensus (usually voting) and must be skillful at maintaining the effective and efficient flow of information both up and down hierarchies. This democratic leaders tend to be articulate and good-looking. The most effective/efficient democratic political leaders seek to discover and expose misinformation (falsehood). And, many of the most effective/efficient political leaders employ disinformation sparingly and temporarily, only in contexts where human lives are at stake. The moral problem is determining how/when democratic politicians go about justifying the dissemination of disinformation. When leaders get caught disseminating justifiable disinformation, followers often forgive them, but not always. In both autocratic and democratic regimes, high-level leaders are deliberately (or unwittingly) fed  misinformation and disinformation by lower-level leaders. And followers are occasionally (if not frequently) are duped by bad leaders who effectively deploy disinformation. Of course, as Machiavelli noted, centuries ago, bad political leaders are often highly skilled in disguising their use of disinformation, and those who get caught are highly skilled at evading punishment and/or "seeking forgiveness" when they get caught. But in the final analysis, it is essential that we all evaluate both good and bad political organizations based on how effectively and efficiently their political leaders fulfill their regime-specific goals.    

PART II. (forthcoming) Will explore how we might go about evaluating the organizational leadership of Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy  in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I will also explain whether their leadership styles and their respective decisions been based on information, misinformation, or disinformation?  In Autocratic and Democratic regimes, respectively, what role should the mass media play in directing the flow of public information, misinformation and disinformation?