How To Lead A Revolution Essay, Research Paper

How to Lead a Successful Revolution

Profile For a Successful Leader

There are a lot of traits that a person must posses to become a successful leader. The examples I am about to present to you are just a hand full of the important traits. The first trait a group should look for in a revolutionary leader would have to be a strong military background, if you are going to war u must have a general of some capacity leading your forces into battle. The second most important trait that a strong leader must have is a good education, back then a good education was knowledge of literature and the ability to read. The ability to read would have given your leader a great advantage, your leader could have read a history book and he would have known what mistakes to avoid. The third most important trait is your leaders ability to command a large amount of people. If you have a leader who cannot control his own army than a defeat is inevitable. Also your leader must want to improve the well being and living conditions for all of his followers. And lastly he must be influential, he must posses the ability to sway the minds of skeptics who do not believe in him or the cause. Being influential has another benefit to it also, an influential person will leave behind people that will carry out your leaders plans in the untimely event of your leader being killed or exiled.

A leader who seems to posses a great number of the qualities stated in the above paragraph is Toussaunt L Ouverture. A self-educated former slave, who led a slave uprising in French-occupied Haiti. When the uprising began he was nearly 50 years old his intelligence of military skills soon earned him the position of leader. He learned about Napoleons struggles in Europe and he decided then was the time to act. In 1798 Toussaint had achieved his goals and he started on the rebuilding of a war-torn nation. He won support of French Planters by offering them generous terms, he tried to heal rifts between classes by opening a government to whites and mulattoes and also Africans, he set out to improve agriculture, expand trade and give Haiti a constitution. When he was exiled more Haitian leaders followed in his footsteps and in 1820 they were a free nation, the only non-slave nation in the Western Hemisphere at that time.

How To Gain Followers

To gain followers a leader must have something to offer the followers in return for their services. A leader must do a lot of things but, most of all your leader should promise improved conditions, and on top of that the promises your leader makes he should be able to carry out.

Again the leader that offers most of these terms is Toussant L Overture. To gain support of the French planters in Haiti Toussant offered them generous terms. Toussant improved living conditions by improving agriculture and trade. Toussant also achieved most of his goal. People believed in Toussant and that was because he set goals he believed he could meet and he met all of them.

Table of Contents

I. Profile for a Successful Leader

II. How to Gain Followers

III. Steps to Take for Carrying Out a Revolution

IV. Recommendations for Post-Revolutionary Period

V. Mistakes To Avoid

VI. Conclusion