Perhaps one in fifty people reading this article thinks of him or herself as a "leader." Think again. You have children—a homeful or perhaps a classroomful. You have a spouse who looks to you for guidance in some (or, G‑d forbid, all) areas of life. At work, there may be one, or sixteen or 600 people who are answerable to you. Or you may be trying to get something accomplished in your neighborhood, synagogue or community. The more you think of it, the more you will discover areas and situations in your life which cast you, by choice or by default, in a position of leadership.
What is "leadership"? What makes a leader? You see a goal. You sense its urgency. You commit yourself to it. How do you impart to others the urgency, the commitment, the devotion you feel?
How do you bring another person to appreciate that it's not about you as a leader, but about the vision, the higher objective to which you devoted yourself, the cause which has helped you become part of something far greater than your own self? How to motivate others to share in this greatness?
Our generation merited a paradigm of such leadership. It is difficult to think of an individual in recent memory who motivated so many to share in his vision of Jewish renaissance and global redemption as did the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, whose yahrtzeit--Tammuz 3 on the Jewish calendar—we mark this week.
Today, there are thousands of the Rebbe's sheluchim ("emissaries") all over the world—men and women who serve as leaders in their communities and who played leading roles in the miraculous renewal of Jewish life in the post-Holocaust era. But the scope of the Rebbe's leadership reaches far beyond the legions of his own emissaries. Heads of state, artists, business titans, army generals, school principals, counterculture icons, rabbis and communal leaders of all stripes—all came away from their encounters with the Rebbe feeling at once enormously challenged and extraordinarily empowered.
Most remarkably, the Rebbe helped demonstrate to every person he came into contact with how we each can and need to become a leader in our own sphere of influence. In the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, "This was not a man who was interested in creating followers. This was a man who was passionate about creating leaders."
What was the secret of the Rebbe's leadership? Can we emulate his model and duplicate his success?
At Chabad.org we labor to uncover some of the vast treasures the Rebbe implanted inside the people he spoke and corresponded with and share them with the public. To this end, we have created—and continue to build--therebbe.org, a website devoted to publishing biographical material, essays, letters, interviews, video clips and personal stories which offer a glimpse into the Rebbe's leadership.
We invite you to visit, browse, read, watch and listen. You will meet a great leader; but more importantly, you will meet a man who believes in your ability to lead. And you will discover that you, too, believe in it.
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