Meaning of Leadership: Leadership is a necessary social phenomenon. Where many people live together, with different habits, attitudes, ideas and interests and yet have to be organised for some common purpose or common goal of life, there leaders will necessarily arise. Nothing can be achieved without organisation. But organisation creates leaders and followers. Political parties are such organisations of the leaders and the led.
Leadership means the hierarchical or organisational supremacy of a person or group of persons. They give unity of purpose to a large number of people by organising them into a single whole for’the achievement of certain definite purposes or ideals, whether of the leaders or of the followers or of both. The nature of purposes and ideals determines the nature of leadership. A political leader is one who occupies such a position in a party as to exercise more influence upon activities, purposes or programmes than any other of its members.
The phenomenon of leadership in politics and State is a complex one. It is influenced by several factors—psychological, social, political and historical. The psychological factors are the personality, the intellectual qualities, the moral spirit and courage, imagination, clear vision, will-to- power, perseverance, or ‘the gift of discipline.’ Thus leadership depends upon qualities of head and heart and also of hand, especially in the past ages when men had to fight or cut their way with their swords to the front. Among the social factors are the habits and customs, beliefs and attitudes of the people, their social relations and organisations.
The political factors are the nature and structure of the State, the laws and the rights and liberties granted by the laws or aspired by the people, the kind and organisation of political parties and the political ideas, attitudes and philosophies which prevail among them. The historical conditions are the conditions of war or peace, victory or defeat, social system and social evolution or the progress in culture and civilisation, and the problems and dangers which confront the nation and the country at home and.abroad in the past and present. All these factors and forces will determine the kind of political leadership that will arise in a country at a particular period in its history. A people have always the kind of leaders it deserves.
There are however, various kinds of leaders: party leaders, parliamentary or legislative leaders, executive or administrative leaders and, above all, the builders of State, such as statesmen, prophets, or revolutionaries and visionaries. The party, parliamentary and administrative leaderships are of routine and visionaries type, while the Statesmen, prophets, revolutionaries and visionaries are rare phenomena which may change the destiny of their nations.