Leadership is an individual sport, played out in the stadium of team dynamics. One cannot lead alone, as in, without followers, but neither can one lead by going along with the crowd. It is a critical distinction.

For a glowing example, consider national politics (any country masquerading with elections will do). One party supposedly stands for X, and the other supposedly Y. But nothing binds behavior of candidates to their party's platform, or even to their own personal campaign promises: I present Franklin Roosevelt as an example. He ran on a reduced spending and lower tax strategy, then horrendously did just the opposite. Or how about good 'ol G.W.Bush or his historical twin, Herbert Hoover? Both were supposedly fiscal conservatives, but each frantically spent government money like a teenager hiding his cigarettes from an intruding parent.

True leaders stand on principle, not platforms and platitudes. They think for themselves, while thinking of others. They act on principle, without acting for a constituency. Leadership sometimes fosters popularity, but not often, and usually, not for long. This is because a leader will sooner or later be confronted with a tough decision that requires going against the misled and misinformed masses. This is why any discussion of leadership doesn't wander very far from the concept of courage. 

Today's tribal partisanship is both ludicrous and entertaining. One can't make any statement regarding current affairs without the listener or reader immediately attempting to pigeon-hole the comment into a Democratic or Republican bucket. Sorry, dear pundit, life is not so simple. 

Change and progress come from leaders using their own brain and doing some independent thinking, regardless of what is considered "politically correct." In fact, a huge clue to finding the truth is to watch what the crowds are doing and look in the exact opposite direction. "Politically correct" is often "technically incorrect." 

So dump the partisanship on the trash-heap of mediocrity where it belongs. Engage on principles and truth. That should be enough to keep you busy for a long while!

Emerson wrote:

"Most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentles' asinine expression."