Terry Newell is currently director of his own firm, Leadership for a Responsible Society. His work focuses on values-based leadership, ethics, and decision making. A former Air Force officer, Terry also previously served as Director of the Horace Mann Learning Center, the training arm of the U.S. Department of Education, and as Dean of Faculty at the Federal Executive Institute. Terry is co-editor and author of The Trusted Leader: Building the Relationships That Make Government Work (CQ Press, 2011). He also wrote Statesmanship, Character and Leadership in America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and To Serve with Honor: Doing the Right Thing in Government (Loftlands Press 2015).
All in Character
In Election 2022, neither Democrats nor Republicans could claim a clear victory. But the qualities of character that have built America did win.
Our fathers have stories of their lives they may never share. If we ask them to do so, we may appreciate them even more - and get to thank them for the example they set.
Why do so many people, at the top of their chosen fields, fall prey to ethical failures? Sometimes good people just go bad and knowing why is the key to preventing it.
A healthy society balances individual freedom with personal responsibility.
A year of profound tragedy and disruption, 2020 was also a time American moral heroes, doing their jobs and honoring their values, showed us the best of who we are and can be.
Leaders need to demonstrate empathy. With it, trust grows and society can improve. Without empathy, leadership is hollow. and often fruitless.
Stubbornness can cause trouble or come in handy. It depends on what you decide to be hard-headed about and how you do so.
Saying “I was wrong” opens the door to personal learning, healing, and better relationships - for individuals and leaders.
Military leaders often need to ask those under their command to sacrifice their lives. To get that kind of commitment, they must love those they lead.
Candidates who promise to much and ask too little of us warp the political process and the American character.
When we allow leaders to avoid responsibility for their actions, we destroy the trust on which a healthy society depends.
Regrets are not detours from living life "my way" but paving stones for it. They shape us. They are signals about who we should be.
We need cures for student loan debt that do not produce unintended side effects that warp society and the character of the students they are designed to help.
The climb up the leadership ladder is often slow and and arduous. The fall is much faster. Those who have made it to the top can stay there, but only if their realize the dangers on the uppermost rung.
Because we’re good people, we sometimes permit ourselves to do things that are not so good. Knowing why can help us be better when we want to be.
On Independence Day, we should recall our founders, who took the hard way against the world's greatest power. The longer we take the easy way, the steeper the price we pay to address our nation’s problems..
Current immigration policy is a failure of elected officials. It divides us from each other, increases distrust of the law and pulls Americans away from their compassionate instincts.
Whenever the military is asked to serve political purposes, as it was recently in Japan, it threatens our Constitution.
In science and technology, the balance between humility and hubris is hard to judge. Much of that work goes on out of view and most of us lack the knowledge to evaluate – or even understand – the work itself.
If legality is the sole standard incumbent on a president, we risk a presidential playing field devoid of ethical expectations.
