There has been a longstanding tug-of-war between those wanting to make leadership more scientific and those who want to make it more practical. We could restrict the scope to establish a regulatory policy ad hoc. However, a better solution would be to have a public debate first, reach a consensus, and then institute the regulatory process through the legislative branches of our governments. The way to balance conflicts of interest is to include proponents of all major interest groups in the debate, which is desirable if not mandatory, before the regulatory policy is cast in concrete. Governments should use scientifically sound recommendations and establish a bipartisan law. In other words, an effective bipartisan regulatory policy after a national debate or public forum where a consensus regulatory law will emerge. One might be able to envision ideal governmental policies to solve problems.

Unfortunately, no laborer will ever be in such a powerful position to influence the policies. These decisions are made by whoever has the power at the time, not by you and me. None of these policies is introduced as an indulgence to the workforce. The initiative usually comes from management itself out of recognition that a younger and better educated workgroup, brought up in an era of skepticism about eternal correctness of established values, is more likely to be productive if it senses that there is some worth and purpose in what it is doing. One generic model demonstrate that expanding a workforce system to curb societal problems had the opposite effect. The impact of regulation is difficult to measure. The consequences are often unexpected and difficult to trace back to the regulations that spawned them. Government intervention does not mean automatic success or vice versa. Social network analysis and group influences has been extensively investigated by social psychologists. Influencing attitudes are generally impossible to observe because they are not visible. Instead their outward expression can be measured to a certain degree. A useful distinction when assessing a groups possession of skill is knowing how to perform a task, and knowledge what is required to perform it.

There arises a pressing need to develop a new set of rules for leadership that will both galvanize and inform their collective social voice and action. With what is known now from the historical mishaps it is no longer sufficient for the commanding groups to assume their pole position will automatically accomplish their beneficial ends for the people. The responsibility of helping ensure the primacy of humans welfare over politics and the global economy. Being vigilante in ensuring that governance do not end up as a mere instrument which further widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Ever since man could talk, leadership was considered a sacrosanct, mysterious gift. It was of course necessary to trust this inspiring person, because he/she gave you and your loved ones freedom from danger or risks, and many times the affliction would vary completely, due to his/hers secret powers. Naturally the more you trusted the methods, the more he/she could lead. Governance became "systematic", above all human failings. Adolf Hitler embodied these authoritarian characteristics.

A productive system built on the theory that efficiency is best attained through paramilitary lines of command is experimenting with the heretical notion that everybody may come out ahead if workers are recognized as grown-up human beings with useful contribution to make on how to do their jobs. However, not every employer who comes forward with a project for job enrichment [1] is genuinely interested in fostering more industrial democracy. The motive may be just the opposite - to create a mechanism for speeding up production without adequate sharing of the financial benefits with his workers.

The same abhorrence of bullies produced the psychological impetus for the principle of "informed consent", which has become a major point of professional ethics. Getting consents from experiments on humans without intelligently given information is seduction. The need for informed consent and the dangerous implications of not getting it, is just as great in other situations than the area of national security. Another important area of concern is the biomedical research, ranging from cancer to social psychology [2].

The narcotics industry marches on in spite of strong opposition from many governments. Governments are at a disadvantage in this kind of intervention. They seem to look at things one facet at a time, in a relatively simplistic manner. In part because of slower feedback processes and a more cumbersome structure. They are not as quick on their feet as the narcotics industry they deal with. While gauging knowledge blanks, governments will encounter a common type of blank - the unidentified entity. Such as a communications link that has to exist from narcotics suppliers to distributors. Active deception include misinformation. E.g. false documents and stories. Unlawful groups induced much of the deception. They use middlemen to hide financial transaction - change aircraft identification etc, to mislead law enforcement officials. Governmental positions have the unique property that something going wrong justifies their existence. Independent organizations, on the other hand, have to rely on competence and good reputation to remain in business. In an ideal description one could believe that intelligent and educated people living in a country within established precedents can strongly influence public policy in the interest of all citizens to whom political leaders are accountable.

To govern once meant simply to guide, but the word soon acquired a stronger meaning. Governments treat people aversively. When they are too aversive, people escape from them or attack and weaken them with violence, terrorism, protests, strikes, boycotts, or revolution. They thus impose a kind of countercontrol upon the power to punish. Some sort of equilibrium may be reached, and we then speak of government by the consent to the governed, where consent marks the limit beyond which authority may not compel obedience. The countercontrol, like the control, is also aversive. The presumed value of a government by the people is that when people govern themselves, they will use aversive measures with restraint. A social environment in which people behave as they like, rather than as they have to behave, has been the dream of many political and social reformers, but it is usually said to be "ideally perfect but impracticable". We are already under way in developing just such an alternative to government as the power to compel obedience. And this may lead to something that is closer to a government of people by people than anything yet proposed in the name of democracy. Unfortunately people govern people in this rather idealistic sense only when everyone has the same power, and this is never the case. Someone emerges as the leader and, unfortunately, almost always by exerting a special share of the power to compel obedience. Countercontrol may limit the power, but the result is not a truly egalitarian society. Something of the same sort follows when a group delegates control to representatives, since delegation can have the same effect as usurpation. Preventing the insurge of power by one's own representatives is only a milder form of the struggle for freedom from tyranny. Neither process guarantees a balanced government. It is often said that in the end, the question is who will control the controllers, but the issue is not who but what. People act to improve cultural practices when their social environments induce them to do so. Cultures which have this effect and which support the progressive technologies are more likely to solve their problems and survive. It is the progressive technologies, then, that is more likely to control the controllers. Unfortunately it does not have the same effect on everyone. Those who act to improve government of the people, by the people, for the people have been selected by unintelligible circumstances and they are often the exploiting elite.

[1] Even some well endowed with imagination prefer to dream their private dreams while going through metronomic routine of slumberous assignment. Many assignments, by their very nature, can never be anything but drudgery, devoid of pride or inspiration.

[2] Especially during the Vietnam war, serious questions were raised in the minds of many people about the relationship of psychiatrists to the military, to college administrations, to prisons and other institutions, where those who paid the psychiatrists' bills, rather than the patients, had first claim on their loyalty. The psychiatrist clearly is in a serious dilemma when he is told that his first obligation cannot be to the patient, but to the institution which he serves. This is one of the major problems we face when evaluating a diagnosis in a mental institution.

Ron Certitude 2009-03-27