Would Tim Farron make a good Lib Dem leader? What we should look for in a leader

Image by David Spender via Flickr

Questions surrounding whether Tim Farron is positioning himself to become the next Lib Dem leader are everywhere at the moment with him having to come out and deny that this is what he is doing. But the fact that people are thinking about the person to come after Clegg raises some interesting questions around what we should be looking for in a leader, rather than choosing from the basis of personalities. So what should we be looking for?

A political party represents a set of values and beliefs that people aspire to and at their best they can make us feel proud and hopeful that we can make a difference to the country and people’s lives. And no one in the party represents these values to the country quite like the leader. Choosing a leader on the basis of personalities can therefore be problematical as we end up supporting them no matter what happens or what they end up saying or doing, even if this goes against the values of the party. So while charismatic leaders are attractive in that the attract support to the party, charismatic leadership carries many potential hazards as well as benefits.  If the party doesn’t represent what people originally thought it did, they end up not supporting the party.

Robin Cook showed the country how to stay true to what we believe in and not idly follow personalities in his resignation speech in 2003. More recently the Lib Dems have needed to give Clegg a swift realignment on the NHS as he was at first seemingly in full support of Lansley’s plans. So I don’t think we should be looking for a personality, no matter how charismatic they are, we should be looking for the best person who represents the values of the party and will stay true to them.

Certain general qualities, such as courage, fortitude and conviction, appear to characterize good leadership and Clegg certainly has these and the next leader will need these too. But what sets Lib Dem leaders apart is the issue of compassion, and Clegg has had praise for this in his time as leader. While intellect is essential compassionate feeling for people will determine the extent to which the leader’s knowledge and powers of intellect become, or fail to become, a force for humanist leadership. So in choosing a leader we should consider how compassionate the person has been.

Creativity of political leadership is a precious asset and a relatively rare one, which is not something that one can acquire by hard work and preparation alone. An inner security, the freedom from self-absorption which enables a leader to keep his mind sensitively attuned to what is happening outside himself and to empathise with people, is a necessary prerequisite for highly creative leadership. Ironically, inner security and freedom from egocentricity are the least likely qualities of those who actively seek roles of power in modern life.

So this raises some interesting questions. How can we learn to discriminate between candidates for leadership whose intense drive for public office springs from egotistic need and those genuinely motivated by the desire to serve, and by care for those whom they would govern? And if these discriminations are beyond our powers, how can we modify our mechanisms of leader selection so as to enlist persons of strong ability whose realism about themselves is evidenced by their lack of consuming ambition for high office?

There is no doubt that a leader needs relevant knowledge, excellent reasoning powers, and good intuitive judgment of people and situations. They will need to be persuasive with the ability to explain on the widest possible scale both the basics of the situation and the dire predictable consequences of continued drift in the face of it. They will need confidence, the capacity to communicate, and inspire people to become the masters of their destiny that men and women have long yearned to be but never yet become. They will need courage to give the unvarnished facts, which will also often be unpalatable, and summon us to change ingrained ways of thinking and acting, such as our energy profligacy, the tenacious growth mindedness of our corporations and many other institutions, and our habit of living as though the present and growing generations were the last that merit our deep concern. Such leadership cannot succeed solely on the basis of appeals to calculated self-interest. It will also require idealism in the leaders and those whom they seek to guide in a protracted politics of nonviolent radical change.

So if Tim Farron holds these qualities then we should all vote for him come the next leadership election but perhaps the question we should ask is does Tim Farron’s leadership ambition stem from egotistic need or from a genuine motivation and desire to serve? Once we begin to see what we really want in a leader, perhaps the most suited person doesn’t hold the same ambition Tim Farron does. Perhaps they are currently under the radar and are quietly providing a compassionate service to their communities. And perhaps they will need encouragement to stand as leader when the time comes?