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).
Politicization hardens the societal arteries. Politics has its place, but when it warps our thinking and institutions, it risks the healthy society which is its sole purpose.
It is easy to tear down international unions, especially when you take no responsibility for articulating how else to achieve the same ends they are designed to address. Going it alone has led to two world wars. We should learn from that experience.
In our current culture, with its emphasis on "me," the film Me Before You offers homage to the transforming power of focusing outside ourselves.
Falling in love is the easy part. But staying in love - protecting and building a marriage - is harder.
A sense of humor today is essential for leaders, yet no one seems to think that politics and public life have a place for healing humor. By itself, it won't cure our ills, but it could be useful medicine.
Research suggests that the emotional parts of the brain often fire before those of the rational neocortex. In short, our logical brain helps our emotional brain justify itself. The implications are sobering.
The public health crisis due to high lead levels in the water supply of Flint, Michigan claimed many victims. This did not have to happen if those in government had been guided by their moral responsibility to those they serve.
Sound judgment is by no means the only capability essential in a president, but it is the one capability whose absence we accept at our peril.
When we get our facts correct and integrate them appropriately with our feelings, our actions can help wonderful things happen. But when we act on feelings alone, as if they are facts, we have only half of what we need to build good lives and strong societies.
Why do we think someone can be president with no training or experience in politics? Indeed, the lack of both seems to many voters a plus.
Science - and scientists - in real life often get much less respect. How can we explain this disconnect?
Religion and politics share a joint interest - fostering healthy people, families, and communities. Yet religious values are often ignored in fostering or opposing political views.
Anger seems plentiful in America. While it has uses, it can be easily overdone, degrading our personal and civic lives.
As the National Rifle Association puts it, any parent who owns a gun must “absolutely ensure that it is inaccessible to a child." Unfortunately, this is expecting too much of too many parents.
Government workers, business leaders, financial titans and everyday citizens increasingly shout to politicians to "get off my back." Yet those politicians are often there because responsibility is not.
People divide across police lines, air waves and cyberspace. In so many ways we separate ourselves from each other, often loudly, sometimes violently. If this is not the America we want, we need to change.
Leaders want recognition for their successes but too often expect exoneration for organizational failures. They claim they were clueless about what was going on. Why might this be so? Does it excuse them from culpability?
Americans used to admire leaders with the humility to doubt themselves. Today, that is taken as a sign of weakness. We should rethink that.
Today, most Americans associate honor with military service but tend to view those who enter civil service as "feds" and "bureaucrats." They think "the best and the brightest" are or should be in the private sector. This is healthy neither for the nation nor the public service.
The Compilation of Federal Ethics Laws has 109 pages. Why then did staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs falsify patient appointment wait times? Why did the IRS single out conservative groups for special scrutiny? Laws are not enough.
