On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 at 19:52:09 in message
, Bob Noel
wrote:

But I would love to discuss this with someone who thinks
that honesty, integrity, and moral are not important characteristics
of the best leaders. I am very interested in what characteristics
they think make the best leaders (which, of course, also wouldn't
have any bearing on what actually does make the best leaders...
now my head hurts.)

This is way off topic.

But, I believe that there are many different kinds of leaders and those
suited to one task are not necessarily suited to another. A great leader
of an aircraft design team might be useless as a leader of soldiers or
running a big government department.

Regarding qualities of morality, honesty and integrity perhaps those
qualities are not unnecessary, but that just doing the job causes most
people to lose them. As we are all human (an assumption) anyone may
occasionally slip from their own standards of honesty and integrity even
though people operate from quite different base lines. Perhaps the
growth of ego and self importance follows from the corrupting nature of
power - which is not a new thought.

Some people can influence others strongly by the sheer strength of their
personalities. Personal experience has certainly showed me that there is
nothing more debilitating to any organisation than the strong
personality that is just plain wrong.

Perhaps no one who craves power can be trusted to use it?
--
David CL Francis