who have spent years together have grown to resemble each other; but the
resemblance is probably in actions rather than in looks; the fact is that
they have had common goals of thinking throughout the many years they have
lived together and so have come to act in unison. The wise teacher often
adjusts difficult situations in her school by inducing the pupils to think
toward a common goal. In their zeal for a common enterprise the children
forget their differences and attain unison in action as the result of
their unison in thinking. The school superintendent knows full well that
if he can bring teachers, pupils, and parents to think toward a common
goal, he will soon have unity of action. When people catch step mentally,
they do the same physically, and as they move forward along the paths of
their common thinking, their ways converge until, in time, they find
themselves walking side by side in amiable and agreeable converse.

In the larger world outside the school, community enterprises help to
generate unity of thinking and consequent unity of action. The pastor
finds it one of his larger tasks to establish a focus for the thinking of
his people in order to induce concerted action. If the enterprise is one
of charity, the neighbors soon find themselves vying with one another in
zeal and good will. In the zest of a common purpose they see one another
with new eyes and find delight in working with people whose society they
once avoided. They can now do teamwork, because they are all thinking
toward the same high and worthy goal; lines of demarcation are obliterated
and spirits blend in a common purpose. Unity of action becomes inevitable
as soon as thinking becomes unified.

Cooeperation follows close upon the heels of community thinking. In the
presence of a great calamity, rivalries, differences of creed and party,
and long-established animosities disappear in the zeal for beneficent
action. In the case of fire or flood people are at one in their actions
because they are thinking toward the common goal of rescue. They act
together only when they think together. Indeed, cooeperation is an
impossibility apart from unified thinking. Herein lies the efficacy of
leadership. It is the province of the leader to induce unity of thinking,
to animate with a common purpose, knowing that united action will
certainly ensue. If he can cause the thinking of people to center upon a
focal point, he establishes his claim to leadership