IT’S time to start placing some values back into our society and this surely begins with electing leaders who will speak about values in their dealings with the community.

At a time of global food shortages and starvation and poverty in too many parts of our world isn’t it time we started addressing these and many other related issues as part of our political discourse, our collective dialogue.

We have a current crop of “white-bread” politicians who seem to know just what to say at the right time but I don’t know that these representatives are asking themselves the tough

questions.

US Presidential candidate Barack Obama is one leader who speaks about values when he addresses the masses. He, like Martin Luther King 45 years ago, speaks about tolerance, hope, justice, values that are as crucial to a fully functional society today as they were yesterday. Barack Obama’s face seems to reflect self-sacrifice and a vision for a fairer world.

Let’s have a look at the qualities or characteristics that set apart a truly great leader. Great leaders don’t hoard power.

Great leaders invite change when it’s necessary, not for the sake of building their own CV.

Leaders are gifted in the art of casting a vision, allowing risk and providing accountability.

Leaders are patient people.

Leaders are people who never forget that other people are their greatest asset.

US President Lyndon Johnson once said that when you walk into a room, if you can’t tell who’s for you and who’s against you, you don’t belong in politics.

That may be true but an intuitive leader can sense what’s happening among people and almost instantly know their hopes, dreams and fears.

Stephen Covey, author, remarks, “A leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, ‘Wrong Jungle!’.”

Leaders occasionally have to tell people things they don’t want to hear, and take people to places where they don’t want to go themselves.

Let’s place leadership before politics for once and begin to address some global issues like famine and war instead of blundering from issue to issue in the pursuit of position and popularity.

Angela Martin

THE NATIONALS

TAMWORTH ELECTORATE COUNCIL