“Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair” – George Washington
by Andrew Yeoman
In a previous article I discussed the question of loyalty and its meaning for a serious political movement. A good comrade brought to my attention an important corollary to loyalty: the expectations of behavior for leaders and comrades in the movement.
Everyone has expectations for acceptable or decent behavior in public and private. For purposes of political activism I differentiate between two standards of behavior that is illustrative of the different roles people choose to play.
A define a comrade is someone whom you know is of like mind and wants to achieve roughly the same goals as yourself. A comrade does not have to agree with 100% of another comrades opinion. Comrades have a special path to walk. With few exceptions comrades come from different backgrounds inspired by ideas and the possibilities they contain. A certain level of being non-judgmental is necessary with comrades: one overlooks personality differences, eccentricities, or differences of opinion. Like a marriage, the long term goal is always the most important part of your relationship. With comrades one is honest, encouraging, and hopefully, always looking on the bright side of any given situation. To be comrades is a rewarding path that offers not just camaraderie but friendship. However comrades do not overlook character limitations or problems that develop in a given situation. I will add that in my opinion anyone that uses recreational drugs should be not be considered a comrade. Same for heavy drinkers.Before I get into expectations of behavior for comrades and leaders lets touch on what leadership is. In English the word leader makes it look like there is a ‘leader’ and everyone else is merely a passive follower of the charismatic personality. This is hardly if ever the case. Leaders may be more accurately described as organizers and in our cause, community organizers. Organizing a group of people to care about each other and act in unity under more or less equal terms is far more valuable than a room full of chiefs and no indians. Simply put leaders are the people that plan and organize events and whom when they express an opinion on some topic people listen and discuss it seriously. It is not that they “lead” people by telling them what to do and shouting orders, the hallmark of leadership is taking the initiative and seeing how to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Rather than waiting for someone else to do what needs to be done leaders take it upon themselves to make things happen. This includes organizing meetings and motivating supporters to attend events. For those of you familiar with this task you know that the latter is probably your least favorite part of the job. Be advised that the behavior and words of a leader is always held up to a magnifying glass and it is a requirement to be an example of living up to the highest standards and second to none. However it should be noted that just being your best won’t please everybody. Making a comment that ninety nine out of a hundred agree with there will always be the one person that will find something wrong with it and try to undermine your leadership because of it. C’est le vie.
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