Leadership

Abstract

This chapter offers insights into the crucial role of leadership for the success of political start-ups. When you kick off with a blank slate, there is no power, no incentives, no structures. So where do you start? Grounded in more than 40 interviews, the chapter offers common constraints that political entrepreneurs face, among them leading without power, leading under extreme uncertainty, leading without clients, leading in times of crisis, leading from the future. In the second half of the chapter, in a conversation on the future of progressive liberal politics, the case is made that, in order to attain the ability to transform, political entrepreneurs to transform themselves first.

The most authentic political leadership is to be seen when large numbers of people are inspired by someone who has neither power nor patronage to dispose of, but whose message strikes a chord with them. Such leadership can be provided by an emergent or rising political party, by a group, or by an individual. It is the readiness of others that defines the effectiveness of such political leadership.

Archie Brown, “The Myth Of The Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age” (Basic Books, 2014).