Recognizing Leadership
Since followership is an essential part of being a leader, we are all qualified to identify people
we would follow. When we look at these, we can identify that there are many or all of the
characteristics we have described. In fact, if they lack some of these, it may be the reason
why they are not as powerful a leader as they might have been.
Look at the excerpt on “Ghandi” below. From the synopsis of this leader’s life, can you
identify each of the characteristics listed by authorities on leadership?
Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi led his nation to
independence of British rule through a campaign of non-violence that lasted most of his
life. Educated in law, at University College, London, he was admitted to the British bar in
1891. Returning home to Bombay, he was unable to get a job. Eventually, he was hired
by a firm with offices in Durban, South Africa – where he lived the next 20 years. Here he
found himself treated as a member of an inferior race, which became the catalyst for
his struggle for human rights.
Influenced by David Henry Thoreau’s essay, “Civil Disobedience,” Ghandi began to
campaign for Indian rights and to practice a form of civil disobedience called
satyagraha (truth and firmness). By 1914 the South African Government had made
concessions to his demands for recognition of Indian marriages and abolition of the poll
tax. He returned to India to campaign for home rule ‘svaraj’.
There, he launched a campaign of passive resistance to Great Britain. He gained
millions of followers. When British soldiers massacred Indians demonstrating against the
use of emergency powers, Ghandi organized a campaign of non-cooperation. Indians
holding public office resigned. Indians boycotted schools and courts. People blocked
streets by refusing to move. They boycotted British goods. Ghandi championed the