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).
Democracy suffers when warring camps on major issues insist their side has to win. Some problems just can’t be solved, but creative ways to manage them can be found.
We tend to think that continuing to get more information always leads to a better decision. That’s not always the case.
Our meritocracy - you go as far and high as your talents and energy permit - has downsides. Those at “the top” may feel superior to others, who who lack their opportunities but work equally hard. Those at “the bottom” may feel unappreciated. Neither is good for democracy.
President Harry Truman faced the political fight of his life in the election of 1948 yet risked defeat to significantly advance civil rights enforcement for African Americans.
There are ways to help people who believe in an unfounded conspiracy think more carefully. Arguing with them, however, doesn’t work.
We will be remembered not by our “resume” achievements but by the stories about us that keep alive our values and how we have treated others.
When we witness, hear about, commit or cannot prevent actions that violate our moral values, we suffer moral injury - and the broader society also often pays a price.
Sojourner Truth refused to be defined by traditional expectations of former slaves and women. The fierce passion of this itinerant preacher added fuel to the fight for freedom and civil rights.
Acting silly, as long as it’s respectful of others, makes a lot of sense. It produces a variety of health and relationship benefits.
Any trial of Donald Trump is a test of the rule of law on which every American depends for their freedom. We must be be careful lest we fail that test.
Questions drive learning. We should trust our children more to learn from the questions we and they pose in school.
When workers and African Americans needed help to organize and fight segregation, Myles Horton taught them how to help themselves, despite threats to his life and his dream.
Jim Thorpe was a perfect athlete and an imperfect man. In that he was like so many other public figures. We might be a better society if we can accept and learn from our flawed public figures.
Acts of kindness mean more to those who receive them than we think - and do more for our own health and happiness than we expect.
Despite recent calls for a “national divorce,” the United States is a contract ratified by the whole people not a compact of states. Honoring that matters in how we think and behave, as the Constitution’s framers knew.
IRS Commissioner Donald C. Alexander insisted that everyone, regardless of position or income, be subject to the nation’s tax laws and treated fairly, even when they hated him for it.
We all want to avoid ubiquitous emails - Spam - that flood us online. But how would we feel if an important email we sent was treated as Spam?
Honor codes on campus have a laudable goal but struggle to work. Stopping academic cheating means paying more attention to what honor means.
High-level officials who leave government service often reap large financial gain from drawing on their government assignments. Is this always as good for democracy as it is for them?
One vote was needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. No one expected it would come from Harry Burn.
