Remarks by President McAleese at the Launch of Common Purpose Ireland’s Frontrunner and Pitstop Prog Dublin Institute of Technology, Monday, 3rd October, 2011
Dia dhaoíbh a chairde. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte a thug sibh dom. Tá an-áthas orm a bheith in bhur measc anseo ar an ócáid speisialta seo.
Ladies and Gentlemen I am delighted to be here with you today to celebrate the achievements of your youth programmes to date and launch your new Frontrunner and Pitstop Programmes. I would like to thank Jackie Butler for her kind invitation to join you this afternoon and all of you for that very warm welcome.
All of us know good leadership when we encounter it, but many of us would be hard pressed to really describe what it is that makes someone a good, or a great, leader. Henry Miller has said that ‘The real leader has no need to lead... he is content to point the way’. Harry Truman stated that ‘To be able to lead others, a man must be willing to go forward alone’, while St Francis of Assisi has written ‘It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching’. They are all very different descriptions of true leadership, but in each description most of us will recognise someone, somewhere, who has impressed us with their ability to inspire, to show the way, to get things done.
We may not be able to give an exhaustive list of the qualities that make up a true leader, but we know that we can usually identify that person when we meet them. Even as far back as our schooldays most of us can remember a classmate who stood out, not necessarily ‘straight A students’ or the stars of the football pitch or the hockey field, but students we trusted, respected for their judgment and looked up to.
Every community has them and needs them - the people who see things to be done and who take responsibility for getting them done, often sacrificing all of their free time so that their communities can be better places to live. In public life too leadership is crucial and was never more needed than now when there is so much work to be done to get our country back to work, back to sustainable prosperity and out of the doldrums of recession and debt.
The Frontrunner and Pitstop Programmes, being launched here today, are designed to support, encourage and upskill those who have already demonstrated an aptitude for leadership and who want to get to grips with how best to use and develop their leadership skills. By taking part in these Programmes they will deepen and widen their leadership capacity so that wherever they use their skills, in the family, the community, the club, the workplace, the voluntary organisation, they will be men and women whose capacity to motivate other people intelligently and effectively will bring out the best in others. Leadership in today’s world is not to be confused with bossiness or superiority, with browbeating or seeking personal glory or reward.
It is about focussing on the common interest, the common purpose and working towards it with all the skill and strategic acumen that is distilled from aptitude, experience, practice and research.
I would like to thank and congratulate Common Purpose Ireland on the launch of these valuable programmes which seek out leadership potential and enable it to develop. Each participant in the programmes, by broadening their own insight and understanding of the mechanics of leadership, will become stronger and fitter for the difficult and sometimes lonely journey that leadership demands. The investment in each participant is an investment in community, society and country for these are the fields that are ploughed and planted by leaders and these are where the harvest of good is reaped.
I want to thank all those who make these programmes possible including school principals, students, contributors, businesses and sponsors. I particularly thank those who step up and take the opportunity offered by the programmes and hope that the investment in leadership will give us a cohort of people who are not afraid to be the first to push out into the deep and to make for the “further shore” that Seamus Heaney writes of. Without leaders we might never know the joy of achievement, the dynamic of progress, the hope that comes from finding ways of solving problems. I thank each and every one of you for the part you play in developing the leaders of tomorrow, leaders I know we will be very proud of.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.