~Honors 10 History Final~
by: Alex Butler
When taking time to look at what made great historic leaders have such an impact on their society, we find many different leadership 'qualities' in these people. Of course, what makes a leader great depends upon may different aspects; including what, exactly, they are the leader of and what they are trying to do with their leadership status. What works for one person, may or may not work for another and same the other way around. A great leader will develop and adapt themselves to their feats and tasks set ahead of them and will also use their own personal qualities if they may so work in their favor. A great leader will know how to handle themselves in any situation and have many different strategies for these many different situations. In some cases, or in the case of the United States founding fathers, leadership was not done by only one man; but was a collaborative effort by a group of men.
Sometimes, there may not be one single man who has everything that is needed in a leader. This would mean that a collaborative effort would have to be made my many who had their own unique qualities to bring to the table. This was the case with the our founding fathers of the United States; there was not one solo man among them who could take over all that this country needed to be taken over and come around with the outcome that we, as a country, wanted. Each of those men had their own leadership qualities that made them important in the constituting of our country. None would have made enough of an impact on their own or have been recognizable or outstanding enough to be acknowledged as making progress. This was a group of leaders, but not individual leaders it seems. Because they were part of a collaborative group of men, each man inevitably brought his own qualities that were needed in order to have some sort of balance and segregation within such a strong unit. Differing opinions, strengths, and ways of thinking were the needed qualities to run such a country as our own; because of our differing opinions and voices as people of this country. Not one leader could successfully lead the United States and make every single person happy and content with the way things turn out on so many levels. Our country is so diverse; we need as much of a diverse leading as possible to be able to take all ideas and ways of thinking about any situation and formulate the best possible way to attack it.
If able to look at the qualities which this group of amazing men was made up of, you can almost break it down into two different sections or categories. The trio of George Washington, John Adams, and Aaron Burr all seemingly have very similar qualities which they contribute to the leadership role. Astoundingly, each of these men have the courage to stand up for their own opinions and thoughts, the strength to keep persisting, the bravery to put themselves at risk so many times, and the confidence to put themselves in such a stressful and tiring situation knowing what they have to do once thrown into it. These men are all on the very strongly outgoing, ambitious, and intimidating side of the leadership bubble they put themselves into; but they would be terrible if the only leaders with only these qualities to run on. While on the other side is the trio consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison who all have similar ways of attacking their tasks as leaders. Almost on the opposite side of the spectrum from the other three; these men are completely wise, thoughtful when deciding the fate of difficult situations and not ones to jump into something without mulling over the consequences, and very grounded; especially for the immense pressure they have and the public image they struggle to maintain. Once again, though, these qualities alone do not make for the best leader and would not give the best leadership to such a country that needs diversity and different thought processes to run. The juxtaposition of these qualities may seem to be very extreme opposites; but came together for an incredible combination.
While looking at how this leadership team worked so well together, it seems that the shared (as well as differing) qualities that they had and also developed while working toward their common goals evened out just enough so as to have just the right concoction for leadership. As has been mentioned, some of the qualities these men had were complete opposites of the qualities of some of the other men; but this worked out because they seemingly made up for what lacked in the minds and thought processes of their fellow leaders. This was a collaborative effort to offset the such extreme extents to which some of the founding fathers, as individuals, lacked many great leadership qualities. In other words; they offset each other just enough for the perfect balance. Some of the men were there only as 'players' in this group effort, which was needed as long as the group was still leading together, but there were others who were the 'morale boosters'. In any collaborative effort, there need to be some who are there only to do the 'physical' stuff, and some are there as much needed 'team captains' to help the team stay as just that; a team. These people keep the group focused on the task at hand and how it is going to be accomplished; keeping the minds off of the stuggles one has to go through to get the task done correctly.
Taking all of this into consideration, the qualities posessed by each individual founding father constituted to a collaborative effort to lead our country into where it needed to be at the time. This group of individuals balanced their own ambition, ideas, regional materialism, and different personality quirkiness in such as way so as to achieve a feeling and thought as to how a government should correctly be formed in order to work they way it should (and needed to). These men poured the concrete for the foundation of our country. They used their plethora of intelligence, bias, and ego working together flawlessly to collaborate the best ideas possible for the outcome they wanted to achieve. The leadership qualities that each individual posessed would not have been enough to propel them to becoming a great leader alone; but the conjoined effort of the greatest, smartest, most opinionated men in the history of this country allowed for the success that each of them wanted individually. The greater the effort put forward by the leaders of the United Sates, the better and longer lasting the outcome.
