Some people believe that in order to be effective, political leaders must yield to public opinion and abandon principle for the sake of compromise. Others believe that the most essential quality of an effective leader is the ability to remain consistently

Should political leader yield to public opinions or committed to particular principles? I concede that leaders should listen to the general public since they are the basis of a democratic government. However, public opinions are often divided and cannot decide for themselves, so leaders should insist principles to guide the public and reach a consensus among different opinions.

As the leader of democratic government, public opinion is of great importance and sometimes even the foundation of a government. The government is elected by people and served for its people. To serve its people, political leaders, in order to reach consensus, does have to yield to public opinion sometimes. If she refuses to do so, she is eroding her popular support which is crucial for her political leadership.

Moreover, I believe that yielding to public opinions is not a compromise, but a thing that leaders must do. Anything important for a nation cannot be decided by leaders themselves. Since most political decisions, for example, how much taxes we should pay or how much medical care we could receive, are closely related to every people’s daily life, it is crucial to involve people into the decision process. Without listening to public idea, a leader may make false decisions that harm the nation as a whole. In history, it has caused much tragedy by seemingly sticking to a principle. For example, in Soviet Union, blind commitment to ‘socialist principles’ caused hunger, repression, and even massacre. Under the guidelines of socialism, what its ordinary people were hoping and thinking was largely ignored, which in turn cause the final collapse of the socialism regime. To conclude, public opinion, to this extent, is the basis of a democratic government. Without listening to its people, leaders will not only lose support but also turn their nations into abyss.

However, public opinions are changeable, divided, and easily to be misled. Nowadays, our world is largely fragmented- different groups of people claiming different values or interest. In a nation, people are prone to change their beliefs or be instigated to be more radical than they used to be. The Brexit, Presidential Election in 2016, or the rise of nationalism in China and Russia all witnessed how people may fall into the irrational camps and abandon the possibilities to exchange their viewpoints peacefully. Under such circumstances, if a political leader is to yield to whatever the public believe without committing to a principle or guidelines, her policies will be similarly changeable and inconsistent. She will, for example, forbid abortion this week, and legalized LGBT marriage next week. Such scenario, is quite ridiculous for a nation, because the role of political leader is supposed to gather different views and reach a consensus among different interest group, not to yield to different claims without considering their consequences. Moreover, without certain consistent principles and objectives, the national politics will be degraded into the ‘tyranny of the majority’, where everyone, every group could have a say. It may sometimes even cause tragedies, as French thinker Tocqueville argues about 200 years ago during French revolution. The values, ideas, and principles guiding a nation will be diminished, and there will never reach consensus between different social groups without a leader trying to guide them or pacify them.

For the final analysis, to be an effective leader, she should neither let all public opinions decide the national politics nor sticking to a principle without listening to its people. After all, if we want to define what does ‘effective’ mean for political leaders, as for me, the criteria of effective is to satisfy the general welfare as well as meet the diversified needs of different group, which requires both clear objectives and the voices of people. So let people voice their opinions, and the leader’s role is the gather them and find a common ground according to a principle or objective shared by the public.