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).
If private sector leaders don't do a better job of using the skills and accepting the ethical responsibilities of public officials, calls to rein them in will increase. GM’s Mary Barra may be the canary in the coal mine for private sector CEOs.
My father died a quarter century ago today, and I find my thoughts increasingly turning to his legacy and the legacy I hope to leave to my children. I wonder if my own will come close to his.
Until we see evidence that leaders have learned from their mistakes and improved,, we should be skeptical about the value of an apology. An apology without a subsequent change in behavior just deepens disappointment and increases distrust.
One of Itzhak Perlman's last directions to his young orchestra was to remind them that talent, which they already have, is not enough. "You can play the music. Now you have to speak the music."
The Founders worried about majority tyranny. Representative government was their solution. But much has changed since 1787. Today, we need to worry about the danger of minority tyranny as well.
To say the words “I forgive you” and “I am sorry” is easy. To mean those words – to have undertaken the work required to turn bitterness to acceptance - is hard. But for our own good, and the good of others, we need to learn to forgive and move on.
There is evidence to suggest that the warp speed at which we can now live our lives may not be leading to the best decisions for our lives.
It is worth asking if we are meeting the test of civic virtue George Washington set in his Farewell Address. Do we have sufficient centripetal forces in our public life to maintain what he called “union and brotherly affection.”
Those angry at the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin see not just that a man has been set free but that justice cannot be defined by what happens in a courtroom alone.
Why, Americans ask, can’t government be run more like a private sector company? To road-test this idea, let’s think about one of the best run, most admired private sector companies in America: Google.
Americans hold many of their public officials in low esteem. Could the reasons include that they detect a lack of honor in those who serve them?
As in so many things, life ought to be in balance. If planning is good, then so is not planning.
Hindsight is a dangerous mental error. It convinces us of the inevitably of events by no means inevitable. Both political parties should recognize their reality is mentally constructed. It has the same danger as a gambler who finds quick ways to explain his winning (or losing) streak.
Proposals to change the way we elect a president abound. We need a yardstick to measure their value to democracy. That yardstick ought to include whether a change strengthens or diminishes majority rule and trust in government.
We seem to want more freedom and less government, when in fact more freedom may also require more – and better - government.
I lost my mother about eight months ago, but she will be ninety-nine in early February. This is the result of dementia. It is an illness that has crept up on her, and us, in small, almost imperceptible steps, as fog crawls slowly up a hillside.
For many years, I have longed for the perfect day – the one when everything goes right. I have had, perhaps, ten of these. Yet I have had many perfect moments.
Market values, exemplified by the use of money as a key measure and medium of political efficacy, have gained increasing impact on how campaigns are run and on how those who are elected govern. Civic values need to play a larger role.
In less than three weeks, we will be moving from our home of 19 years. We will be exchanging our 1.5 acres for 0.15 acres –an attached home whose garden is but the size of our current garage. This is our choice, and I am in no sense complaining. But it feels like is a loss.
Shortly after being declared the winner, the next president will claim a mandate to govern. His supporters will demand that his mandate be honored. Both misread American politics and the Constitution.
