Mediocrity of government leaders

Government leadership in democracies or totalitarian states tends toward the mediocre. They are incapable of inspiring, or administrating, leading or managing. The selection processes eliminate those who can inspire and manage. In western democracies the values of selecting candidates by parties are governed by advertising considerations, such as, being photogenic and being acceptable culturally, religiously and ethnically and by political considerations, such as, party loyalty and size of power base within the party. Leadership qualities are not very important. In totalitarian systems of government, the selection process are either bureaucratic or violent neither of which tend to result in great leaders.

Ethnic frictions which have dominated the political agenda in post-communist eastern Europe, call into question the calibre of the new leaders, particularly in Yugoslavia and the new Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.