Leaders have followers not slaves

Always wanting to be a good leader I have tried looking at what made other leaders as "leaders". One of the things that hit me was that most of these leaders that were successful are mild mannered, respected individuals and not tyrants or dictators. Tyrants and dictators become leaders but they always end up falling. Usually a very tragic and painful drop from fame.

So what is this quality that truly made up the leader. I think that quality is the leader always commanded the respect of the people that they led. They made their subordinates look up to them rather than be scared of them. They always tended to put the interests of the subordinate first before their own. They were willing to give up the best for their subordinates before thinking of keeping it for themselves.

All of this is very hard to achieve as it expects a very selfless way of thinking but I do feel that if one can even get close to doing the things I mentioned above they will surely become powerful and strong leaders.

Conflict = Drama = Popularity

Watching the news channels of late got me thinking about the style in which most of them function. They find a conflict or a contentious issue and then they get a panel to perform a drama arguing about that issue and that creates a spicy mixture of entertainment. Or atleast that is what they think.

None of these discussions ever result in anything concrete being decided or any commitments made or any meaningful insight into the real problem. There is only mud slinging that goes on and then the moderator runs out of time and closes the discussion leaving you hanging.

Very rarely does one find a clear articulation of the pros and cons of a particular decision and reporting news the way it is to be reported - the truth and to the point. There is a lot of dramatization created and this ends up putting ideas into the viewers mind that did not exist in the first place. This can sometimes have serious consequences and unless news channels start acting responsible and are held accountable for what they report, I do not see an end to this style of reporting.