Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has inspired his people and the world with his courage and his words as the Russian army brutally bombards his country’s cities and civilians. Zelensky reminds us that in war words and symbols are the tools of leaders like Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln.
Zelensky has become a transformative leader inspiring, motivating and raising the morality of his people and the world. He transformed himself from a television comedian into a country’s president but then from a mediocre manager with a 25 percent approval rating into a charismatic wartime leader.
Zelensky has employed the tools of classical rhetoric to rally his people and the world to his cause. First, he has persuaded through his character. As the Russians attacked, Zelensky shed his suit for military fatigues and an unshaven face and went into the street to shoot selfie-styled videos declaring to his people, “I am here. We will not lay down any weapons. We will defend our state, because our weapons are our truth,” He rebuffed the US offer for safe passage by saying, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Zelensky has exhibited extraordinary courage by risking his life to stay in Kiev knowing that Putin intends to kill him to decapitate the Ukrainian resistance. By willing to sacrifice his life for Ukrainian independence, he has earned the credibility and authority to ask sacrifice of others.
Second, Zelensky persuades through the power of his argument, which he frames as a fight to uphold the liberal order – a defense of democracy, freedom, and the right of a country to maintain its integrity against an unprovoked invasion by a more powerful neighbor.
Just when our own commitment to democracy has waned, Zelensky pricked our conscience to make support for democracy in Ukraine a moral obligation. As we sit in the comfort of our living rooms watching the plight of Ukrainians we cannot help but think that they may be more committed to democracy than we.
The horrific killing of civilians has silenced pro-Putin admirers and shifted the debate to whether the US is doing enough to assist. In asking for aid, the transformational leader has transformed us.
Third, Zelensky persuades by connecting emotionally. He pulls on our emotional levers to get us to identify with Ukraine by seeing its devastation through our own country’s most painful moments. In a speech to Congress he invited us to see the attack on Ukraine through the eyes of our country’s attacks at Pearl Harbor and on 9/11. In a speech to the British Parliament, he drew on Hamlet’s question about whether to be or not to be and on Churchill’s famous speech urging the British to fight the menace of tyranny whatever the cost and to never surrender.
Zelensky calibrates his message to strike the right tone between gratitude for all that democratic countries have done to support Ukraine and the need to do more. His message is direct: “I call on you to do more.” To get countries to do more he sometimes draws uncomfortable comparisons for his audiences. To the Israel Knesset he challenged Israel’s neutrality by showing the parallel between the Holocaust and the Russian targeting of Ukrainian civilians.
To the German Bundestag, Zelensky vividly painted a picture with the metaphor of another Berlin Wall built with the cement of the Nord Stream pipeline, the stones of refusing Ukraine entry into NATO, and the barbed wire of Germany’s ongoing trade with Russia. Zelensky chastised Germany for prioritizing its economy over its moral values and personally appealed to Chancellor Shultz to “tear down this wall.”
Transactional leaders represent our political and economic interests but, unlike transformational leaders, they do not call us to sacrifice for a higher purpose. Zelensky has awakened us from our complacency, demonstrated that democracy is worth fighting for and even dying for, and asks us to stand up for our most cherished values.
— Special to the Telegram
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