A Critical Lack of Decisive Leadership
18 August 2006Winston Churchill said, “It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.” I’ve written before about our collective deficiency of gumption when it comes to war. We can’t seem to tolerate even a few casualties, whether our own or our enemy’s. But what is different now from times past? Why were generations before us more capable of doing “what is required” than we seem to be?
There are, of course, multiple reasons. One is the 24 hour news cycle. Never before have the people been bombarded with casualty statistics and images as we are today. To be sure, this is a large contributing factor. But I submit that the media could not draw us back from what is required if we had decisive leadership.
Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” While some of you reading this may not put much stock in the Bible, the book of Proverbs is of particular use to most everyone. The above statement would, it seems to me, be quite difficult to argue with regardless of your religious persuasion. What we in the west need is a leader with a strong vision and the ability to communicate that vision in an effective manner.
Ronald Reagan was famous as the great communicator. When Congress was recalcitrant, Reagan went past them to the people and made his case. He regularly engaged in what is known as vision casting.
Successful organizations large and small have a few things in common. One of those things is a leader with vision, a leader who communicates that vision to his subordinates. The organization is irrelevant. Effective leadership requires a vision and the ability to cast that vision for others so that the leader’s vision becomes everyone else’s vision.
It isn’t enough to cast the vision once. The people will catch the vision and support it but they will not remain sold out to it unless the vision is regularly recast. The leader must be committed to the vision and he must regularly remind the people why the vision is important.
One of my greatest complaints about President Bush, apart from his fiscal irresponsibility, is his singular lack of ability to regularly communicate his vision to the American People. Ehud Olmert has the same problem. In the west there is no coherent vision that anyone can see. There are many competing visions but no single vision dominates. No single leader has cast a vision in a way that has caught the imagination of the people.
During WWII we had vision. Leaders like Eisenhower and Churchill had a vision. Having the vision was good but inadequate by itself. They had to communicate that vision to the people. They had to convince the people that the vision was good. In their case the vision was that western democracy was worth defending and unless it was defended against the evil that was Nazi Germany and Japan, western democracy would fall. They cast that vision often and well.
We have no comparable leadership today. George Bush, Tony Blair and Ehud Olmert don’t seem to have it. Either they don’t really have a vision or they are incapable of casting it. All three seem to spend most of their time embattled precisely because they are not casting a vision.
As I said, there are any number of competing visions in America. Some involve defending ourselves and our way of life. Others revolve around changing our way of life and attacking our values. I believe the vision America needs is one of self determination and defending the American way of life. Reagan was particularly good at casting such a vision. He believed that our best days were still ahead of us, not behind us as some seem to believe today. Reagan believed, as I believe, that we have a nation of patriots, ready to defend this country so long as they understand what they are defending and what they are defending against.
America is not perfect. But American is the closest to perfect as any country and form of government has ever come. Thousands and hundreds of thousands have given their lives to create and defend this country and our way of life and government. Their blood must not have been spilled in vain. As Thomas Jefferson said, “the tree of liberty must be sprinkled from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” We need leaders that understand what Jefferson knew. This country and freedom in general is worth defending. They are worth fighting for. We need leaders who will remind us of this and do so passionately and often.
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September 29th, 2006 at 11:53 am
[...] Several weeks ago I wrote a column titled A Critical Lack of Decisive Leadership in which I argued that Bush needed to stand up and cast the vision. We’ve waited a long time but he finally seems to be getting it. [...]
November 18th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
[...] Some time back I wrote a post called a Critical Lack of Decisive Leadership. In that post I argued that what we need is a leader who actually leads. A leader who has a vision. A leader who takes the time, as long as it takes and as often as it takes, to cast that vision for the people. If the vision is a good one the people will respond. That’s what Reagan did and it’s what Bush has been reticent to do. [...]