Hume 1

Jack Hume
English 2 Hon ALA
Mrs. Carter
7 September 2014
Leadership Log: Unit 1
One of the lessons any person who can think for themselves (and
thats not everyone) learns at some point is that good leaders are few and
far between and those that are are often just effective, not moral or ethical.
Very few people with good morals and ethics can ever gain leadership with
any true authority; power corrupts even the most well-meaning people.
George Orwell, a man who lived at the height of effective but immoral
leadership, understood the reality of power: the lack of any viable, perfect
political solution, and the gradual erosion of quality English that came with
government. In 1984 and Animal Farm, Orwell paints the picture most
accurately with his tale of the animals of Manor Farm, a group of animals that
searches for a better life, only to be overcome by worse tyranny than they
had before, not remembering a time when anything was different. In a world
like todays, many leaders slowly, unconsciously let power corrupt them, and
others are oblivious to it.
However, good leaders are not an extinct species or impossible to
create. As Frederick Douglass shows, a good leader is someone who strives
to be good, who pushes through hardships, and who can put aside instant
gratification for future reward. Even though he was a slave, a thing that

Hume 2

could be sold for money, Douglass did all these things: he understood how to
be a good leader. Today, he is revered as a light at the end of the tunnel, a
face to the name of hope and future ability. Though mans tendency is to let
power corrupt, and many leaders clearly show this in the modern world,
there are definitely a few diamonds in the rough: leaders who believe in
themselves and their cause, and work tirelessly for the greater good;
anomalies in the statistics of the worlds authorities.