Democratic leadership

This is something I wrote more than a year ago. It's interesting to look back into my logic as it was back then and feel the evolution.

A Democracy typically implies a situation where every individual has the right to contribute to the decisions of the group. His/her view definitely features in the final conclusion. He could be part of the winning majority or the losing minority; but, he is a part of the whole.

Now, leadership implies influencing/ controlling/ manipulating a group to work in unity. Unity is something that is not characteristic to a typical group. Every individual has a perspective and assuming that every person’s perspective in the group synchronises would be unrealistic. Therefore, leadership is what helps glue the group together in spite of their differences. This is done by emphasising on one commonality amongst this set of diverse individuals; the Objective.

Another term I would like to emphasise is facilitation. Facilitation involves coordination and management of an activity. It acts like a catalyst. From a group perspective, facilitation would mean enhancing the thought process within the group and giving it direction.

What I would like to emphasise through this discourse is that Democratic Leadership does not exist. These two terms contradict each other. If there needs to be a democracy, there cannot exist leadership at the same time. Yes, democracy can exist before leadership is elected, but not with leadership in place.

Democracy involves respecting every individuals opinion and featuring it in the final decision. Democracy has its obvious drawbacks like the multitude of ideas and perspective and the turmoil this can cause in any group effort. However, the answer to this is not leadership because leadership curbs true democracy.

Therefore, the term ‘Democratic Leadership’ is not a congruent statement. It should be modified to ‘Democratic Facilitation’ because democracy and facilitation complement each other.