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

Some people believe that a good political leader should accept public opinion and meet the demand of majority. While, opposites hold the point that an effective leaders should insist their principles and do whatever they believe right. Personally, I tend to support that political leaders should maintain their own idea and be able to make their own decision.

First of all, we may know that common people may not have correct political sense as leaders. In most of time, the majority's opinion are different from leaders. That does not imply that leaders are doing something that betrays the willing of the country, instead, it can be explained that leader can have a better political sense which ordinary people do not have. For instance, leaders will always impede the market before it turns to irredeemable status and prevent the uncontrolled cost for the whole country; however, most of the citizens even cannot predict the best time for them to trade and store goods in order to maximize their benefit. Therefore, it is impossible for political leaders to have thought just as publics or they will not make effective decisions.

Secondly, it is impossible to meet everyone's demand. Admittedly, everyone has different imagination of their dreaming country and society. But it is irrational to meet everyone's request. In that case, accept suggestions from some group must cause the lost benefits of others. Though it is impossible to make everyone satisfied, the only fair way is sacrifice whoever necessary to sake the greatest beneficial for the country. To achieve this goal, we need an effective leader who can persist his own idea and ignore every piece of objection which prevent it.

Indeed, accepting public ideas is an advantage in some degree. A leader who unable to learn from public can never find his own deficit and make the best choice for the country. However, that does not equal to undetermined and abandon his principles to meet the public's demand. Because it is unreasonable and very difficult to manipulate. For example, within a political party, there must be several subgroups which hold different ideas. Following the majority's viewpoint does not indicate the leader make a great decision. Sometimes, each subgroup just preserves the opinion which is the most profitable instead of being best for the whole party. In such a situation, yielding to the public opinion may have bias and cannot be the most effective choice for the whole party.

To sum up, an effective political leader should hear what others saying but the most valuable quality for his is insisting his own principles. Because leaders, they should take the whole country into account, while for publics, they only represent the profit of individual or just a small group.