Nourishing our American leaders

Leaders are made, not born. Leaders reinforce success, not failure, and know the difference between the two. Leaders have the moral courage to lead, and the moral courage to suffer loss, and bounce back. Leaders are lucky as some disappear along the way. Leaders use the initiative to be in charge. Leaders recognize being on the defensive is like a ship being dead in the water, and having to respond vice initiate is a least preferred situation. Political leaders are in their positions for patriotism and ego, not money and power. Political leaders represent and create; cynical political followers manipulate and critique.

Leaders take council of their fears; they recognize our imagination is our worst enemy. (We are our own worst critics.) President Franklin Roosevelt said it another way: “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself”. Leaders will go in harms way, knowing nothing is certain as to outcome. Leaders will fight the good fight for its own sake. And leaders will show restraint when called for: they do not shout fire in a crowded theater.

Leaders think of the future. They avoid being bogged down by the past. Having a problem is less important than what the leader does about the problem, in the future.

America seems to suffering from a period of poor leadership in the executive and congress at the federal level; big churches and academia at the national level; as well as the state and local levels. It’s not that all leaders are poor, just that we’ve had more good leaders in the past than we seem to have now. Of course in a Country as big as ours, this opinion and situation varies around the Country. What is universal is the need to grow future leaders at all levels to promote our Country domestically and foreign-wise. Growing and nourishing leaders mostly means voting for them, and supporting them with money and election support. It also means supporting standards and practices that enhance our Nation. Self appointed leaders and those who proclaim to know the truth are always suspect. We seem to have more than our fair share of educated fools.

It is easier to see all the failures and problems around us. It is easier to critique after the fact. It is not easy for many to acknowledge they are followers, which most of us are. It is not easy to think America can cease to exist as a nation. But we all do serve in our own way, and nourishing our leaders is in our National Interest.