Why are some people so keen on power and manipulation or want to control things?
Usually the answer will be: “To get your own way” or “because you think you know best”. With this, soon the urge will come up wanting to lead.This tendency in life often leads to exploitation. The difference lies in where it is based upon. And, of course, how we deal with it.

Leadership lays in the desire to convince others you know best and the willingness of them to be convinced. After all, it can be terrible easy being a follower. No responsability, no need to think particularly hard or deeply about things, lots of room for righteous indignation, plenty of scope for criticism - and plenty of time for other things. No wonder so many people like the role. Indeed, I wonder whether ‘followership’ is not an innate quality of human life, even more so than leadership. There are always far fewer Chiefs than Indians, for example, and not just, I suspect, because experience has taught us the problems of having too many of the former and not enough of the latter.

Animality
Certainly, according to Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, everyone possesses the life state of Animality, one of whose main characteristics is the tendency to dominate those weaker than you, and be dominated by those who are stronger. It is this life state that throws up leaders who rely predominantly on force (or the threat of it) to achieve their ends. It is also the life state that prompts people to give power to ‘strong’ leaders, to follow leaders blindly, to adore leaders when things are going well and then turn on them when things go wrong. In short, it is the life state that shows our inescapable roots in the animal kingdom. And when Animality dominates the relationship between leaders and led we are no better than seals, buffaloes and hyenas - however polite we may be in turning the knife.

Of course, not all leaders rely on force to get their way, just as many of the led are anything but supine in the face of those in power. In democracies, for instance, leaders tend to be more or less reasonable and humane, if only because they are accountable to a broad range of opinion. But that doesn’t mean democracies can’t make the wrong choice - Hitler was elected, for example, and even some presidents of the USA have been found corrupt.

Corruption
However, because of the authority and status normally accorded to leaders by those they lead - in virtually every sphere - there is an inherent tendency towards imbalance in their relationship that all too often tempts leaders into the world of Animality, to look down on and exploit others, however pure and noble their original intentions. As Lord Acton pointed out, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. So what’s the answer? To do away with leaders altogether? Apparently not. Experience seems to teach that no group can operate without leaders for long: the inefficiencies that flow from the differing abilities of individuals and from the need to debate every decision usually mean that leaders soon emerge - in fact, if not in name.

Being some 3,000 years old, Buddhism has long been aware of the problems posed by leadership. But whereas in politics the answers seem to lie in an elaborate system of checks and balances, Buddhism prefers to see the problem in terms of its root causes - in the life states of both leaders and led. For just as their relationship may be based on the world of Animality, so can it be based on Buddhahood.

Three Virtues
In fact, Buddhahood embraces an ideal notion of leadership. The Buddha is sometimes described as possessing the “Three Virtues of parent, teacher and sovereign”, for instance, these being, respectively, the compassion to nurture and support all living beings, the wisdom to instruct and lead them to enlightment, and the power to protect them. In other words, the desire of the Buddha is to raise all people to the same enlightened life state as himself - the very opposite of the exploitation seen in Animality. And since all people have the potential to become Buddhas in this lifetime, fundamentally there is absolute equality between the leader - the Buddha - and the led, his or her followers, who will become Buddhas themselves in due course and will themselves display the Three Virtues. The Buddhist notion of leadership is, I believe, applicable to every field of activity. It sees leadership primarily in terms of service based on compassion, in co-ordinating the energies of others towards a greater goal, while respecting and encouraging the unique talents of each individual, and taking responsibility for their happiness and growth in faith.

Greatness
And since very many of us have some degree of leadership responsability, however small, in some area - as parents in the family or managers at work, for instance - it’s a notion we might like to try, if we’re not doing so already. Indeed, similar notions of leadership have been applied by some of the greatest leaders of humanity and are, I believe, in part responsible for their greatness.

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This page was last modified on Sunday, August 20, 2006.