Winning isn't Everything

We are now apparently fully engaged in the campaign for the next President.  It doesn't seem like the current one ever stopped.

We have a lot of contenders for the democratic nomination and I guess that's OK it will get sorted out over time.  Still the main issue that gets talked about is what is needed to win, not what the country needs.

One of the things that helped the current president emerge from the long list of Republican candidates was that he seemed different, taking positions unequivocally about certain things.

Most of his positions consisted of meaningless sound bites and after getting elected not much has changed.

Still the public wants to hear ideas about where the country is headed, not platitudes.

We do see a few candidates with ideas and the debates might clarify it more.

We need a leader to emerge, not a politician, who has real concern for all the people in this country, and a vision of the future which isn't a retreat into a past that is gone.

America has a greatness about it and part of that is inclusion and progress.

We need a President who can take us there.

Saturday Musings Again

If you live in a prosperous European nation and someone invited you to come to a place with rampant gun violence, poor and expensive medical care, terrible income inequality, rampant drug addiction, significant homophobia, a large military which uses a large amount of the budget, a significant anti-science minority, and blatant racism the most likely answer is probably no thank you.

Probably shouldn't be calling other countries names.

America does have some economic benefits, but I can't imagine any Western European admiring our Government or the way we elect it.  They actually are used to a more democratic system.

After the revolution we were possibly the most democratic nation on earth, we have slipped from that pedestal as we continue to use 18the century methods in the 21st century.

I don't know if anyone except a few wealthy people feel the Government represents them, similar to some of the countries our dotard insulted.

Years ago I remember being told the difference between managing people and leading people.  The manager tries to make everyone the same, effectively treating everybody as cogs in a machine that needs to be maintained.  There's nothing really wrong with that approach, but the people in it feel, well like parts of a machine.  Leading people means treating each one as a unique element of your organization with different strengths and weaknesses.  You become one with the group and everyone feels like they want the whole to succeed.

People feel like people.

You can manage from the rear, but you lead from the front.

There are of course many books on management and leadership and they may very well point out other characteristics, but leadership is much more a feeling than a set of characteristics.

At least the way I see it.