Political Intelligence part 4 of 5 parts
Lead with optimism, no matter how dire the situation may be.
Political leadership cannot be ever acceptable as a defeated leadership. This is always a matter of people, state and a nation. Your people look up to you. You need to put up a bold face, all the time. In the worst of the situations, you need to be optimistic- its reality as well as optics.
I remember watching a TV interview of PM Narendra Modi at the time when the nation was staring at a bad monsoon. Our economy heavily depends on good rains- especially the rural economy. The weather department, scientists and climate Pundits were predicting a bad year. He told the interviewer ‘I am an optimist and I am sure God will be with us and we will get a good monsoon’. I am sure he must have been a concerned man but he said this with enthusiasm and full conviction. A positive word saves the nation from going into a tail spin. It is hope that gives hope and that is the Audacity of hope.
While a Senate candidate, former US president Barrack Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention, titled ‘The Audacity of Hope’ that propelled him to national prominence. In the less than twenty minutes it took to deliver the speech, Obama was catapulted to sudden fame, with many analysts predicting that he might be well positioned to enter a future presidential race. In 2006, Obama released The Audacity of Hope, a book-length account that expanded upon many of the same themes he originally addressed in the convention speech. That is the power of hope.
In his speech addressing the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Obama said
‘In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!’
