Leadership is an idea whose time has come again

Leadership is about devotion to principles or a mission. It is not a formula. Leadership is about the future, and not the past. Leadership is about the good of the whole, and not the individual. There are few natural born leaders, most have to be trained. And “government leader” is an oxymoron. Most leaders come from our entire culture, to include business leaders in management and worker groups and unions, our religions, our schools, our scouts, and our entertainment media.

Do you remember when cigarette smoking quietly left the movies. Do you watch old movies without bad language or nudity and with scripts that just rivet your attention as they provide entertainment. That is an example of leadership in the entertainment media.

Leaders know to uphold standards, and are willing to let people fail and struggle. Their relationship to their followers is one of “teacher to the student” and “father to the son”, never “senior to subordinate” or “master to slave”. Leaders don’t give out trophies for all participants in sports. There are winners and losers, and leaders use the difference as an opportunity to teach and show. Leaders do not believe in “from each according to their abilities” and “to each according to their needs”. Leaders are taught to be egalitarian and altruistic, and to practice charity.

To say leadership is an idea whose time has come again suggests other values have been rated higher in the recent decades. Ideas such as individual rights trumping group rights, multiculturalism making all cultural values morally equal, sexual promiscuity disguised as sexual freedom, the education of children changing from basic training to exist in society to indoctrination, to drug use being tolerated with a wink to even promoted in media and sports happened on purpose. The perceived value of all the preceding often followed the vague principles of revolt and reform intended to improve culture, though the mob mentality and necessary lowering of standards ruined this in the end.

Perhaps had we fewer “virtual mobs” and more individual leaders who could survive the many derisions of the last few decades things might have sorted out better than what we have today? And we in our American culture have many leadership start points, many focusing on our young people who respond to respect, education intended to benefit them, challenge, taught standards, and well, leadership, to include parenthood. Leadership is not dead, just coming back in respect and appreciation. And again, most leaders have to taught and trained to do the basics so valued by their followers, and children for some.

So start today wherever you are and at whatever you have a chance to do. Be it a church meeting, a business meeting, a school dance, a sports event, or whatever, start the leadership of our country according to your definition. If you need cotillion training, find it. If you need to respectfully shame having children out of wedlock, do it. If you need to evict school disrupters out of the regular classes, do it. If you need to break up children dancing too sexually suggestively, do it, and even explain why in harsh terms. When you are a sports coach, teach sports values along with sports drills, and explain why. If you don’t like the media movies being offered, vote with your pocket book. If you don’t like the cable or satellite "bundled" packages that include channels with girls making out with each other in the 6 PM timeframe, cancel the whole package. And then work to enable us common citizens to bust up programming packages to allow us to pick our own channels to pay for. That is one of the original ideas of the public benefit of TV, and the technology has us there.

Last, and again, few leaders are born, and most have to be trained. So much a part of training is self-confidence training. While it can be physical, it can also be mental. And so if in doubt, go for what you think is right and valuable, and find the training you think will benefit you later. Leadership is back in. Be willing to make mistakes, and be willing to take constructive criticism. But be a leader.

Of course there will be burps and farts along the way. But never be intimidated by the old school types. They had their chance, and blew it. Now it is back to basic leadership.