What does it mean by leadership in this quote?

Question

"The Civil War was not inevitable; it was the result of extremism and failures of leadership on both sides."

Answer 1

There was no need for the Civil War, because in the end we were fighting ourselves. Our brothers in arms. The North and South were no different than each other, and they were just people with the same idea, but with different course of actions. It was the lack of leadership that caused the civil war. Something could have been worked out, as it says in the quote."it was the result of extremism and failures of leadership on both sides." Just means that everyone on both sides was so stuck up in their own ideas and were narrow minded to the other side, thinking they were the only one that was right. If they sat down and tried to compromise. Thats a big word in politics, COMPROMISE, the civil war would never have happened.

Leadership is not on the ability to lead during crisis, its the ability to follow and have the ability to compromise as well. A good leader is a good follower and listener, and able to maintain his people in times of hardship and peace.

Answer 2

It was inevitable, contrary to the quote. When you have two mutually unacceptaqble courses, conflict is inevitable. This quote blames the leaders of the US Government and the Confederacy, but several Compromise Acts were passed prior to the Civil War that only forestalled it, rather than prevented it.

Answer 3

Inevitable? Failure of leadership on the US Goverment level?! OK----

Answer 4

What it means is that they didn't chose the right or better things for themselves ending up having a bad leadership.

Answer 5

The general dictionary def. will do. Other than that I believe that the opinion is incorrect.