President Harry S. Truman put the question of leadership in simplest terms, almost Yogi Berra-like, when he said, &uot;A leader has to lead, or otherwise he has no business in politics.&uot;

Is every person elected to political office a leader? Is it important that he or she have those hard-to-define qualities called leadership?

The answer to the first question is no. The answer to the second question is yes. But voters should be excused if they do not always make the right choices, said Joseph B. Parker, professor of political science at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.

&uot;In the modern media world, where words and images are substitutes for reality, you can certainly be fooled,&uot; Parker said. &uot;Voters are mere mortals spending most of their time at work, scraping out a living … making a decision that one is the best candidate, aren’t they to be forgiven if they make a mistake?&uot;

With a general election on Tuesday, voters throughout Mississippi will choose from among candidates vying for state and local political offices &045;&045; governor, lieutenant governor and other state offices; and, in Adams County, sheriff and other county offices not determined in the primaries held earlier this year.

Parker said voters can look for certain characteristics to determine leadership, one of the most important being the ability to get things done, &uot;to cut through the fog.&uot;

&uot;The guy who can get straight to the heart of the matter is seen as a leader,&uot; he said. Furthermore, the person who can point to physical and policy improvements, such as buildings or bridges built or successful programs enacted, can claim leadership success.

Jim Wiggins, history instructor at Copiah-Lincoln Community College in Natchez, draws from people throughout history to teach his students about leadership. Leaders in a democracy such as the United States have specific challenges, however.

&uot;We’re the bosses in a democracy,&uot; he said of those who elect political leaders. &uot;I always come back to Abraham Lincoln. He had the great moral import of what he was asking people to do. He never demonized the other side, though.&uot;

Lincoln was ahead of public opinion but not too far ahead, Wiggins said. &uot;He compared it to being on a riverboat going down the river, zigzagging from one side to another, not going in a straight line.&uot;

A good leader will tell the people when they may be called on to sacrifice in tough times, that there are no simple solutions to a complex problem. &uot;Moral clarity is a good quality, but sometimes that prompts simple solutions,&uot; Wiggins said. &uot;You can’t reduce things to the simplistic ‘me good, you evil’ thing. That panders to the public.&uot; On the other hand, a leader has to maintain a delicate balance between truth telling and holding the people’s will to follow him. &uot;If you say the bold, courageous thing, you may lose the public, alienate the people.&uot;

Adolph Hitler was a leader. &uot;But he led by giving simple solutions. He was a rabble rouser who pandered to the public and used fear mongering and demagoguery &045;&045; that’s not what we’re looking for,&uot; Wiggins said.

Parker said many concepts of leadership arise from military terms. &uot;The whole concept is you inspire … by your superior knowledge, superior integrity, superior thinking capabilities and superior work habits. You set an example.&uot;

The great historian and writer Barbara Tuchman, speaking on leadership among military generals, divided the qualities into two categories &045; personal leadership and professional capacity.

Personal leadership, she said, requires a balance of good judgment and strong will. &uot;Will alone carried Washington through the winter of Valley Forge … and only his extraordinary will kept the half-starved, shoeless army, unpaid and unprovisioned by the Continental Congress, from deserting. Judgment would have said, ‘go home.’&uot;

Tuchman defined professional ability as the &uot;capacity to decide the objective, to plan, to organize, to direct, to draw on experience and to deploy all the knowledge and techniques in which the professional has been trained.&uot; The bridge that connects the personal and professional abilities is intelligence, she said. That was a great strength of Lincoln, Wiggins said. &uot;He was willing to learn and change. The intelligent response to experience is to change and adapt.&uot;

The good leader does not exert coercive pressure but, rather, exemplifies good character and unselfishness, Parker said. &uot;He would not ask me to do anything he wouldn’t do himself,&uot; Parker said. &uot;He would work for the good of the organization. I would trust him with my money, my wife, my child and I know he would not defy that trust.&uot;

That does not mean that sometimes a political leader does not have to withhold information from his constituency for their own good, Wiggins said. He quoted the great British statesman Winston Churchill, who said, &uot;In war, truth is so precious she must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.&uot;

Even Lincoln, known as &uot;Honest Abe,&uot; was not always honest, Wiggins said. He was practical, &uot;constantly melding the practical with what was morally right.&uot; Lincoln made good appointments to the group working closely with him during the presidency. He also made some purely political appointments.

Parker said the people advising and gathering around a political figure make a statement about the leader’s qualities. &uot;The character of real leadership is the first tier below the boss. Leaders can drive but not steer, can give direction but not do the grunt work. They provide a sense of direction and hire those who will implement the leader’s vision.&uot;