WHAT does leadership mean? At the most fundamental level, a leader is someone who makes decisions. He makes hard decisions when they are not likely to be popular, as well as when they are.
In Governor Chris Patten's second policy address, he made the decision to address many of the issues concerning the livelihood of Hong Kong citizens. These are important and complex subjects that require leadership. I was pleased to see Mr Patten's willingness to address that challenge.
But on the question of electoral reform, Mr Patten has relinquished his leadership role. In a single disclaimer of responsibility in the conclusion to his policy address, he asserted: ''We can only be as bold as you. That is not a surrender of leadership. That is a statement of fact.'' With this revealing turn of phrase, he did what he purported to deny: he surrendered leadership. In another place, at another time, it would not matter so much. But in our Hong Kong, with less than four years before the transfer of sovereignty to China, leadership now - or the lack of it - will make or break the ''one country, two systems'' guarantee for 1997 and beyond.
After September 1991, the colonial system of picking and grooming leaders for the Legislative Council was rendered obsolete. It became the undoubted duty of the British Government to allow Hong Kong's legitimate elected leaders to rule Hong Kong, and grant power to them to do so.
Mr Patten has clear-cut obligations imposed by the Joint Declaration.
Last year he recognised this, and set himself the task of arranging for free and fair elections in 1994 and 1995, and building up local institutions of democratic self-government before Hong Kong is handed back to China.