Golda Meir

Among many people who would like to become leaders of any social group, organization, or any authority, only a small percentage demonstrates strong leader traits. Mostly, they just have a greed for power and recognition, and this is exactly what people do not want to see in a leader. Somebody to follow must be somebody who is worth following.

Golda Meir was one of the mostly recognized and strong leaders: a personality to make an example of. She was a woman who was called “Israeli Iron Lady”. She was one of the first women to hold a post of a leading country authority; an ambassador of peace and acceptance for her country, and a strong leader to lead the nation. Meir was considered as a good and caring grandmother of her people but also as strong-minded, willing, and ambitious politician. She was even proclaimed by the former prime minister of Israel as “the only real man in the government” (Butt, 1998).

Golda Meir was born in the family of Mabovich in the 1898 in Kiev. Her family moved to the United States at the beginning of the new century. From the youngest years, Golda demonstrated a strong personality and a will of achieving goals. She was often criticized by her own family for choosing the way of education and labor as a teacher in Wisconsin. She studied and had a part-time job. Her mother was surely against such kind of odds. She considered that her daughter had to marry and leave the path of education. Golda rebelled against it and mowed to live with her sister who lived in Denver. As she wrote in her own biography, intellectual evenings which were held at the house of her sister were “the extent that my own future convictions were shaped and given form”. (Meir, 1975)  In Denver she also met her future husband Morris Meyerson. Even in the marriage, she had the leading role of decisions making. When Morris embraced to her his preposition of marriage she set a precondition of moving to Palestine, which happened in 1921.

Firstly, the recognition of her leadership qualities came to Golda when she became a part of fund raising campaign for Poale Zion. With this campaign, she travelled across the United States. When she and her husband started to work in a kibbutz in Palestine, the kibbutz chose her as their representative to the General Federation of Labor. She was a convinced socialist and assertor of a Zionist movement. She fought for the unrestricted Jewish immigration to Israel. She struggled with the British White Paper and initiated illegitimate immigration of Jews to Palestine of that time. It was the essential part of her convictions to keep her nation together and save as many people as possible from the terror that was happening at the time in Europe on behalf of German Nazi regime. Meir became an active member of the inner circle of the Histadrut and the first person in the trade union and welfare programs of the Zionist labor organization. Through the abroad fund-raising, she gained a political recognition and was appointed a chief of the Histadrut’s political section. She was elected as a secretary of Working Women’s Council, which required her to spend two years as an emissary in USA. This step reflected strongly on her marriage, as the spouses grow apart, never being divorced though.

The most significant step that was taken by Meir was running to be elected for Prime Minister of Israel. During the period of Meir four-year time in office, she fought for the recognition of Israel and keeping save the nation from Palestinian people. The time of Meir being the leading person in the country was marked by the huge efforts which were done to receive economic and military assistance from the United States. She gained assistance from President Nixon, which was of advantage at the time of Arab-Israeli wars and in the peace talks with United Arab Republic. However, all of her efforts were not enough and at the end of her leading time, the new military conflict appeared, to which Israel was not prepared. The Yom Kippur War brought a demand for a new leadership.

Nevertheless, Meir was and still is a perfect example of the leadership qualities. Even after her retirement, she played a huge role for their nation as a public person.

The style of her leadership and her motivation were clearly simple. She became a leader in order to help her country and people. She rose and developed a strong personality and position in all the authorities she was a part of. The most effective way to become a leader is to pursuit a great goal, which she accomplished. Through the effectiveness of the fund rising missions and her position as Israel's minister plenipotentiary to the Soviet Union, she gained a secured ally to her country. The more promoted in her carrier she was, the more experience and connection she used to improve her position. She is a perfect example of a simple teacher from Wisconsin who became a leading authority of her family country.

Meir was an example of a politician leader.  The decisions taken by this person corresponded with the needs of the people around her and were also the needs of her. The values that were important for her to become a good example of a leader were flexibility, open-mindness, and sometimes even overstepping the bounds of the supposed adequate behavior of a woman. Creating an image is the first thing that a leader does. By her example, an image was her whole life. She inspired her campaign fellows to follow the goals of a free nation, not being afraid to live and develop. The government under her inspiration and help provided to the newly immigrated Jewish people, with her help thirty thousand units of one-room housing were built to unsure for the families a home.

Leadership qualities cannot be bought or stolen. They can only be raised and developed in oneself. A person who is willing to become a leader has to have a clear goal before his/her, and this goal cannot contain only persuasion of egoistical matter. People -  friend, the staff, the nation - this are those who arise the leader to his title. If there will be no achieving of the common goals and undertakings of the problems, no leader will be elected. A leader should mediate the conflicts and improve his surroundings. A leader should become a person who solves all the problems.