Dumbledore, Leader of Men (and Women) (was: Chapter Discussions: Chapter 4)

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 83832

Laura and I came down rather hard on Dumbledore.  I wrote:

> ... The order is not operating as a cohesive unit, and I think Dumbledore is 
to blame.

And Laura concurred:

> Although I'm very happy to join in heaping blame on DD, who I think richly 
deserves it, 

To which Paula objected:
> Why do you guys want to be so hard on DD?   He's just now a confrontational 
character.  DD give anyone order, even more so a fuss budget like Snape? 

I can't speak for Laura, but I'm being hard on Dumbledore because he has 
effectively taken the fate of the world onto his shoulders.  It's only to be 
expected that he be held to a higher standard then other people.  Let me 
make myself clear: I think Dumbledore is a fantastic teacher.  As a mentor, 
he's the greatest.  He does a fine job administrating a school, doing his 
best to keep his students well-educated and ethically grounded.  His 
performance as Harry's protector has been spotty, but I give him full marks 
for effort in a difficult job.  As a social philosopher, a political activist and an 
instigator of social changes, Dumbledore does fine work.  From his defeat of 
Grindlewald in 1945 and his duel with Voldemort in OOP, we know that he is 
a fine duelist, and we've seen ample evidence that he is an all-around highly 
accomplished wizard.  But as a leader of men, a general of war, Dumbledore 
falls tragically short of the mark.  When you consider that it is this role that 
will Dumbledore's most pivotal in the years to come, you can understand why 
I'm unwilling to cut him any slack.

Dumbledore inspires fanatic loyalty among his supporters.  On its face, this 
might seem to be a good thing for the order, until you look at his least 
critical supporters - Harry, Hagrid, Mrs. Figg.  The child, the childlike adult, 
and the disenfranchised adult who is uncertain in the wizarding world.  They 
look to him as their savior.  Among his so-called adult supporters, 
Dumbledore is quite heavily criticized.  Snape doesn't understand why 
Dumbledore trusts Lupin and tolerates Sirius.  Molly feels the same about 
Sirius and Mundungus, and Sirius has grave reservations about Snape 
(apparently, so does Bill Weasley).  Sirius openly criticizes Dumbledore for 
forcing him to remain cooped up in Grimmauld Place, and Harry criticizes 
Dumbledore quite frequently in OOP.  In the course of a year, he loses a 
great deal of the respect that he had for his headmaster.

We might say that this criticism is a good sign.  Unlike Voldemort, 
Dumbledore doesn't want sheep following him without thought.  However, 
an organization such as the OOP is not a democracy, and disgruntlement 
with a leader as we see it expressed in the book - as grumbling among the 
troops - is not a good sign (admittedly, we never see Dumbledore interacting 
with the order, but the peripheral results of his leadership paint a disturbing 
picture).  And indeed, the results are disheartening.  Sirius and Snape nearly 
come to blows.  Mundungus blows off his shifts to conduct shady dealings.  
Harry slacks off in his Occlumency practice, which Snape eventually 
terminates, despite Dumbledore specific orders.  

Without Dumbledore's guidance, the order disintegrates.  In the short hours 
in which he's kept out of the loop at the end of OOP, a potentially disastrous 
situation is allowed to develop, mostly due to the acrimony between the 
different members of the order.  That this situation ended only with the death 
of one man, and not with the deaths of Harry or his friends or with the 
prophecy falling into Voldemort's hands is due mostly to luck (and to 
Dumbledore's superior dueling skills, which as I said are not in dispute).  In 
short, Dumbledore has collected a group of talented people committed to the 
cause of defeating Voldemort, but he has failed to form them into a cohesive 
unit.  Paula is right to point out that Dumbledore is not a confrontational 
person - he always prefers the path diplomacy and discourse to that of 
argument and battle (although he is willing to take the latter when and if it is 
necessary), but avoiding necessary confrontation and allowing his followers 
to pursue their destructive behavior is not a good quality in a leader, and in 
this case it has lead to disastrous results.

At the end of OOP, Dumbledore identifies his problem himself, although he 
mostly fails to recognize that it is a universal failure is most of his dealings 
with people.  Dumbledore is a remarkably unemotional man, sometimes 
maddeningly so.  This makes him remarkable, but it also blinds him.  He 
expects his followers to act as coldly as he does, simply on his say-so.  He 
expects Sirius to sit tight at Grimmauld, ignoring the younger man's mercurial 
temper and the emotional toll that staying in his childhood home takes on 
him.  He orders Sirius and Snape to get along and assumes that they will do so.  
Most importantly, he keeps Harry in the dark, and expects the boy to accept 
this apparent snub calmly and without question.  

On the face of it, a leader has every right to expect his followers to obey him 
unquestioningly.  In reality, unquestioning obedience is a currency very easily 
squandered.  People don't appreciate being left in the dark, or given orders 
without discernible meanings.  They'll accept it for a while, but sooner or later 
they will rebel.  Without truly inspiring his followers, which Dumbledore so far 
has failed to do, he will very likely find himself leading, only to discover that no 
one has followed him (fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will no doubt recognize 
the dynamic I'm describing).

Pip, in her recent masterful post on MAGIC DISHWASHER and fallible 
Dumbledore, suggested that Dumbledore's goal is to overturn the social order 
of the wizarding world, installing a more egalitarian government.  I agree with 
her that instating a new social order has been Dumbledore's priority since he 
was a young man, and I believe that when he views this goal, violent flare-ups 
such as Grindlewald and Voldemort's first and second reigns of terror appear 
as mere spikes in a pattern of racial violence that he has been following for 
more then a century.  I also think this makes Dumbledore a bad leader - he's 
focused on the big picture, and fails to take into account the petty concerns 
and bruised feelings of his soldiers.  Since unlike Voldemort, Dumbledore 
doesn't plan to reward his followers with anything other then the satisfaction 
of doing the right thing, this doesn't bode well for their sustained loyalty.

An important caveat before I end: I realize that not everything can be laid on 
Dumbledore's shoulders.  No man can force people to change, and Dumbledore 
certainly can't make people be better then they are.  He can't make Sirius less 
impulsive or force Snape to relinquish his grudge.  What he can do, however, 
is try to inspire his followers to make themselves better then they are.  Thus far, 
he is failing.

Abigail