A Timely Breath
This blog is about the practice of leadership; that is, helping individuals understand how they can work within groups large and small to increase collective effectiveness. It is not intended to support any particular ideology or substantive point of view on political, religious, or other issues.
That said, I confess to having taken a break from posting leadership strategies over the past several months for reasons related to the cumulative effects of close-minded unilateralism and dogged intolerance on the parts of our national administration.
The leadership vacuum in Washington, D.C. had expanded to such a degree, with such tragic and deadly consequences for this nation and for the world, that I admit to feeling my contributions could make no difference.
What has given me 'the audacity to hope' once again over these last eight weeks, however, isn't that the quality of national leadership has improved, because it has not. Rather, it is that everyday people at every level showed before and during the recent election that they could organize groups and work effectively to call for national leadership. These citizens demonstrated the human need for community and for building community, and in the process attested to the hard-wired leadership instincts we all share.
Most important, they reminded me that everyone of us can recognize when leadership is absent and that we can fight to find our breath through the feelings of powerlessness and of immobility that characterize a leadership vacuum. For this reason above all, I'm once again hopeful there's a point to boring into the mechanics of effective leadership strategies.
Perhaps anyone who worked with John Gardner should have naturally trusted in what he called the 'tremendous resources of strength and spirit' of the American people. But it's helped me to see these qualities at first hand, among friends and as an observer of many others.
So, let's 'press on,' in this place, to tackle the specifics of building community.
That said, I confess to having taken a break from posting leadership strategies over the past several months for reasons related to the cumulative effects of close-minded unilateralism and dogged intolerance on the parts of our national administration.
The leadership vacuum in Washington, D.C. had expanded to such a degree, with such tragic and deadly consequences for this nation and for the world, that I admit to feeling my contributions could make no difference.
What has given me 'the audacity to hope' once again over these last eight weeks, however, isn't that the quality of national leadership has improved, because it has not. Rather, it is that everyday people at every level showed before and during the recent election that they could organize groups and work effectively to call for national leadership. These citizens demonstrated the human need for community and for building community, and in the process attested to the hard-wired leadership instincts we all share.
Most important, they reminded me that everyone of us can recognize when leadership is absent and that we can fight to find our breath through the feelings of powerlessness and of immobility that characterize a leadership vacuum. For this reason above all, I'm once again hopeful there's a point to boring into the mechanics of effective leadership strategies.
Perhaps anyone who worked with John Gardner should have naturally trusted in what he called the 'tremendous resources of strength and spirit' of the American people. But it's helped me to see these qualities at first hand, among friends and as an observer of many others.
So, let's 'press on,' in this place, to tackle the specifics of building community.
posted by Bob Rossi at 11:23 AM
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