I am not out to romanticize or glorify the man. Nor is his story over. Still, I think it’s possible if not now probable that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will go down in history as among the most significant leaders of the modern Western world.
His appearance last night before a joint session of the U.S. Congress was electric. To have watched him live was to succumb to the mood of the moment. Almost impossible to resist the impact of his leadership style and substance on nearly every member of the House and Senate. Almost impossible not to be reminded of how at their peak, leadership and followership fuse, leader and followers engaged in a relationship that feels, that is, mutually momentous.
None of this though is “magic.” Leadership that is electric does happen, though only rarely. Leadership that is magic is however rarer still. What’s magic about Zelensky is how he came to be – transfigured in the blink of an eye. Transformed from one moment to the next. From one moment to the next metamorphosed from a leader who was ordinary to one who was extraordinary.
To whom can Zelensky more generally be compared? To which leader is he even remotely analogous? In the wake of last night’s speech Zelensky was repeatedly likened to Winston Churchill, specifically to the British Prime Minister in 1941, when he traveled to the U.S. in great secrecy similarly to plead for help before both houses of Congress as his country was beset by a mighty fascist foe.
Which other leaders have put themselves on the line to fight for freedom and democracy against overwhelming odds? There have been others, of course. Martin Luther King, Franklin Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela and, for that matter, George Washington come immediately to mind. But each of these was seasoned over time. They had years to prepare for the moment when history called.
Not so Zelensky. As the world now knows Zelensky was an entertainer. He was a comic and an actor. He entered politics only in 2019 – and in 2019 he was elected president of Ukraine.
During his short time in politics Zelensky was not of course oblivious to the threat posed by Russia. After all, in 2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin had already seized Crimea from Ukraine and occupied some of its eastern regions. But the fledgling Ukrainian president did not bargain for war. Certainly not for “Putin’s War,” a ferocious, entirely unprovoked attack on Ukraine in February 2022.
Still, his inexperience and inexpertness notwithstanding, Zelensky became, effectively overnight, one of the greatest wartime leaders in recent history. Within hours of the Russian invasion the U.S. embassy in Kiev offered Zelensky and his family safe harbor, an escort to get out of Ukraine. He famously rejected it, with a reply that was a harbinger of the leader to come: “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Who can say how such a thing happens? How a largely unpracticed and apparently unremarkable man is refashioned overnight into what seems a leader for the ages. Magic.