The traditional meaning of “authority” is not power over others, but recognized knowledge and competency. Throughout history, communites have chosen their leaders based on their demonstrated wisdom and proven ability to forge a basis for collective action. The modern age has forgotten how to recognize a real leader. We equate charisma with integrity, credentials with authority, and wealth with competence. We accept a system in which potential leaders are not found but marketed by political machines funded by the wealthy, groomed in consultant echo chambers, and presented like branded detergent. Yet beneath this facade, there still beats the natural capacity of regular people to sense who among them has the insight, character, and will to serve the common good.
Local Groups could revive the ancient, ordinary practice of recognizing, recruiting, and elevating the worthy among us. They offer a platform for those whose gifts lie in service to speak, propose, listen, revise, empower, and guide. The coming decades must teach us how to cultivate authentic authority—the kind that arises from shared effort, from acts of integrity, from the slow but steady emergence of those who carry the collective good within them. When leadership arises from this organic soil, it tends naturally toward the virtues that have always sustained just governance: truth, compassion, humility. Compassion-driven governance guards society against systemic sociopathy masked as pragmatism.
Future leaders may come from the quieter places where character is forged. Those who practice introspection—whether through meditation, entheogenic ceremony, prayer, or other self-scrutiny—are uniquely prepared for leadership. A person who has wrestled with their own shadows, who has cultivated stillness in the midst of turmoil, is less likely to project their unexamined chaos onto others. Introspection grants perspective, the lifeblood of wise authority.
Equally vital is the long-overlooked leadership of women. Across cultures, women have often carried the invisible burden of sustaining families, mediating disputes, and quietly keeping the fabric of communities from fraying. These skills—negotiation, patience, empathy, endurance—are the very traits political life now lacks. Societies that elevate women into decision-making roles tend to show lower corruption rates, greater investments in education, and stronger commitments to the welfare of children and elders. These are not soft virtues but the hard scaffolding of social survival.
And from minorities, who have endured inequities and systemic exclusion, comes another deep reservoir of leadership. To persist in the face of stacked odds is itself a training ground in resilience, innovation, and courage. Those forced to navigate a society not built for them develop an ability to see through its hypocrisies and contradictions with clarity. Such leaders bring not only empathy for the marginalized but also a sharpened realism about the structures that perpetuate injustice.
Power intoxicates because it feeds the illusion of control, superiority, and permanence. Authority triggers dopamine circuits associated with reward and status. This can lead to desensitization. The leader needs more power, more control, to feel the same rush. It’s not unlike addiction. Public office should never come with mansions, motorcades, or shows of obsequiousness. Power must be actively withheld from some. Indigenous traditions warn of a predatory force that consumes without limit—the Cree speak of Weitigo, the Anishinaabe of Wiindigo, and the Hopi of Ee Eepa. This is the dominator spirit, a sickness of the soul that sees others not as kin but as resources to be drained. It is the mindset that subjugates, hoards, and feeds endlessly on the vitality of those beneath it. Leaders afflicted with this disease do not serve; they devour. They extract obedience instead of inspiring trust, and enforce hierarchy instead of fostering harmony.
Public office must be shielded from wealth’s distorting influence. Wealth inherently breeds entitlement, erodes empathy, and risks converting governance into private enterprise. Excluding the very wealthy from public service would help to withhold leadership from the most acquisitive and egocentric among us. Fluid councils with rotating leadership served our ancestors well.
The Nez Perce, Iroquois, and Lakota understood that no single person could embody all the virtues required for every circumstance. They selected different leaders for different contexts: a war chief in times of conflict, a peace chief in times of negotiation, a spiritual elder when guidance was needed. Leadership was not a fixed status but a function, situational and revocable, grounded in demonstrated ability and trusted character. Councils served as vessels of collective wisdom, where each voice, especially those slow to speak and quick to observe, was drawn out with care. We need once again to recognize the value of collective wisdom, and of leaders who know when to step forward, when to empower others—and when to step aside. Dispersing authority among many helps leadership remain a service to the whole, a temporary grant of trust.
“Zohran Mamdani at Caveat 5.25.25” by Bryan Berlin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. (Cropped)