Where are the leaders that this world needs?

• Last Updated: November 22. 2009 7:31PM UAE / November 22. 2009 3:31PM GMT

Today’s global leadership appears more concerned with staying in power than doing what is best. Even in this increasingly globalised age, international politics remains too parochial. From Israel-Palestine to the global financial crisis, from Europe to the posturing populists of Latin America, the world cries out for leaders willing to make the difficult but right decisions needed to solve problems. Leaders of democratic states too often have their eyes on winning the next election, and in other countries leaders too often become dictators as they cling to power past the point of being useful.

What too many world leaders fail to understand is that good leadership is not doing what makes you popular; often it is doing the opposite. Yesterday was the anniversary of the assassination of John F Kennedy, who famously said: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” JFK asked quite a bit of his countrymen, and not all of it was popular.

The man in today’s world most often compared to Mr Kennedy is Barack Obama. But thus far the comparisons do not extend beyond a knack for oratory. He may yet match the world’s high expectations, but his efforts to date have been largely futile. At some point, words must also produce deeds. While leaders must have concrete accomplishments to be considered truly great, ultimate failure does not mean they were wrong. Equally, providing great leadership does not always earn a nation’s gratitude. The former British prime minister Winston Churchill led his people with fortitude and courage through the darkest days of the Second World War, only to be removed from office in an electoral landslide immediately afterwards.

In Russia, Dmitri Medvedev is currently fighting what is probably a losing battle for control of his country’s future. He told an assembly of his United Russia party that they needed to stop cheating to win elections, which hurt the country’s fledgling democracy and threatened their political future. He is right, of course, but that may matter little.

His former boss and current prime minister, Vladmir Putin, is expected to contest and win the 2012 presidential election, because that is what he wants. And every time Mr Medvedev says “democracy” Mr Putin says “the economy”, because that is what Russians are worried about at the moment. What they fail to understand, and what Mr Medvedev and presumably Mr Putin understand all too well, is that much of Russia’s woes are due to a corrupt political and economic oligarchy beholden to one another, with little incentive to change the system (not that truth always wins elections, especially Russian ones).

And in the end, perhaps the greatest attribute a leader can have is to know when the time is right to leave the stage. How many of today’s “world statesmen” will accept when that time has come? Too few.