What makes a politician?
Max Weber’s lecture "Politics as a Vocation" has inspired generations of politicians. The lecture touches on universal principles of leadership.

Whether you’re in politics or leading change in any domain, three key qualities stand out for impactful leadership: passion, responsibility, and judgment:
1. Passion is not raw emotion but deep dedication to a cause. A true leader’s passion is guided by purpose and a commitment to the responsibilities of leadership.
2. Responsibility keeps political endeavors grounded in service to the cause, not personal ambition. Passion without responsibility becomes directionless, risking chaos and loss of meaning. Accountability is what aligns passion with meaningful impact.
3. Judgment—the ability to perceive reality with calmness, detachment, and clarity—ensures rational decisions under pressure. Without it, impulsiveness and poorly considered actions take over.

Weber wrote that vanity is a politician’s greatest enemy:
"The politician has to overcome a very trivial, all-too-human enemy within himself every day: the most common vanity, the mortal enemy of all objective devotion and all distance—distance from oneself."

The pursuit of power, Weber argued, is inherent to politics but must serve a purpose beyond itself. Vanity, often tied to irresponsibility and lack of substance, undermines leadership and distorts decision-making.

Beyond these principles, Weber wrote about the tensions and paradoxes of leadership. Politics demands:
- Balancing conviction with ethical responsibility to avoid harm from idealism or moral emptiness from pragmatism.
- Integrating charisma, expertise, and disciplined organization to deal with complex systems.
- Addressing power’s challenges without losing sight of purpose.

Weber’s perspective remains relevant for leaders who deal with the challenges of power and influence today.

"(...) the final result of political action is (...) regularly, in a completely inadequate, often almost paradoxical relationship to its original purpose. But this purpose (...) must not be lacking if the action is to have inner stability. (...) the cause in whose service the politician seeks power and uses power (...) can serve national or human, social and ethical or cultural, worldly or religious goals; it can be supported by a strong belief in "progress" - in whatever sense - or it can coolly reject this kind of belief, it can claim to be in the service of an "idea" or, while rejecting this claim on principle, want to serve external goals of everyday life - there must always be some kind of belief. Otherwise, indeed (...) the curse of (...) insignificance weighs even on the most outwardly powerful political successes."

Source:
Weber, M. (1919), Geistige Arbeit als Beruf - Vier Vorträge vor dem Freistudentischen Bund: Politik als Beruf, München/Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.