http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20080925/ts_usnews/mccainandobamascrambletoshowleadershiponeconomy
The two contenders in the presidential campaign have been faced with a challenge that seems rather tricky. This financial crisis has proven to force McCain and Obama "to show leadership, judgment, and political cunning even while they try to gain an advantage in the race for the White House."
The political system in most countries are similar in a sense that they have a council to help the leaders to make decisions that might affect the entire nation's survivability. It is essential that the council, or the advisers of the leader, do not engage in groupthink. I believe that in a group, it is necessary for every member to play a part in the decision-making. Every member helps by providing an alternative point of view, or just simply lend support and commitment in the decision made. Even President Bush needed to invite "Democrat Obama and Republican McCain to join him and congressional leaders at the White House Thursday to negotiate a compromise and "safeguard the financial security of America.""
This is an example of how important a group is to an individual. As the solution might be risky, the group can provide many perspectives on the case and work towards the best possible solution. Many decisions need to be made, many opinions need to be considered, many problems need to be solved. With a group, the support is there to help boost the decision made and ensure that it will be the best. It is required of them to displace any form of individuality and stay united to the decision-making process. A group discussion allows a leader to make decisions, know that he/she has support and is not overlooking any flaws in the decisions made.
5 comments:
Indeed engaging in a group discussion with people of different ideologies is good for coming up with viable solutions that is for the good of the people. However, the decision still lies in the hands of the leader and so the leader should be one that knows what is right for the people and how to go about doing it in the right way.
Very true. In a group, no one should depend the leader to do everything himself. A leader is someone there in a group who is there to lead the group in making concise judgements and decisions. The group members are there to help the leader in achieving this. Hence, a group communication is really a 2 way thing where we will benefit the most out of it when everyone puts in the effort in contributing ideas to the group.
Yes, I agree with you that it is not easy to engage in group discussions, especially in political sessions because of the hidden agendas involved. For instance, political leaders also have to deal with the dilemma whether to agree with group discusssions or to go with their own individual needs.(to climb up the political hierarchy)
Perhaps that is why political leaders would engage in group socialisation to gain support from the other politicians and to achieve their ideals.
Ultimately, being in a group means one have to respect the opinions of his/her other group memebers. In this way, the group would be more unified hence be able to make more responsible decisions. Everyone thinks differently and some members of the group might be able to forsee the difficulites of certain situation better than you do. That's why it is always good to consult others before making any major decision.
However, when it comes to internal crisis, or fragmentations in any groups, the leader have to be the one to make the final decision so as to put his group on the right path again.
Being in a group is definitely important to any individual. It allows on to recognise their strengths and weaknesses. Besides that one can depend on each other to improve on themselves.
A leader is ultimately important but the followers have to put in equal amount of effort to make everything work!
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