Leadership Qualities - Which is Most Important?

The most important quality that a leader should have is the ability to listen to what other have to say. In governments like democracy, an elected leader should be the voice of the people, not just the voice of a couple of people. When leaders listen to their electorate, it shows the people, that as a leader, they care about what others think, and are willing to take into consideration the viewpoints of everyone. As a leader, it is their job to bring prosperity, whether to a nation, or just a small community. In the book Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, one of the character, Graff, talks about how he should not be able to dictate the protagonist, Ender's, life. In his words, he states, "I don't even think it's right of me to decide the fate of Ender Wiggin,"(Chapter 8, page 98) as a response to Major Anderson, whom Graff was having a conversation with, about who should be able to dictate the fate of the whole world. This quote shows that no one should be able to decide for everyone, based on what they think, and that if Graff was a good leader, then he would choose to take into consideration what Anderson was saying and consider changing his opinion on how Ender's future at Battle School would shape up. A leader may have the best intentions, but things may not always turn out as they like, which is where the opinions of their citizens becomes important. If one mind can think in a million different ways, then imagine how many ways a million minds can think. In Chapter 9, on page 136, Card wrote in Valentine Wiggin's point of view, "Peter knew how to exploit fear in his writing - she had to keep coming to him for ideas". This shows that while Valentine may think of the logical way to do things, Peter chose to use violence to get people to see the way he did. While good leaders may not always do the right thing, sometimes it may be for the best of everyone. In Chapter nine, Graff visits Valentine after Ender has been gone for two years, to ask her to write him a letter. Valentine at first refuses, as she now understands that all of Ender's letters were kept away and not sent to her family because they needed him to be isolated. However, Graff knows that Ender is stuck at a certain point of their game, "The End of the World" to be exact, and cannot get past it. Eventually Graff resorts to writing out his own letter and formatting and styling it in the way Valentine usually wrote her letters. This letter gave Ender the determination to continue o with his game, and eventually succeeded in getting past "The End of the World".  This shows that leaders also need to do what is best for their people, as if Ender had not gotten beyond that point in the game, he could not be their successor against the buggers.