In the past couple of days, the former Directors of the CIA and DNI have castigated the current president on his handling of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Both individuals have taken upon themselves the mantle of I know more than the President about how he should conduct Foreign Policy.
I’ve been reading about all the political shenanigans that are going on – not just in Washington, but throughout the country. Identity politics is not new. Ad hominem attacks on political opponents are as old as politics itself; and, just from my perspective, I’m beginning to think that politics and prostitution may tie as the oldest professions in the world. And then there’s that nagging voice in the back of my mind that equates one with the other.
I had intended to write a short monograph on leadership, but the event in Sutherland Springs, Texas needs a comment. I’m familiar with Sutherland Springs from 1969, when it was on the northern edge of our bailout area at Randolph AFB. There were plenty of open fields surrounding the area, and open fields are what you’re looking for if you’re about to let your jet aircraft crash into the ground while you take a nylon escalator down.
Go into a bookstore and ask for a book on leadership, and they will point you to an entire section wherein they keep the tomes highlighting the leadership styles and practices of Jack Welsh, Attila the Hun, Ulysses S. Grant, and hundreds of other supposedly sagacious leaders of yore. Now some of these hundreds were, indeed, great leaders in their time, but their styles are of little use to the reader wanting to become a better leader in their 21st Century organization.
As I ponder the content of various media news outlets, I’m struck by how many people I note who display more than a few traits associated with psychopaths, sociopaths, egoists, and egotists. As a former case officer who had to assess and manipulate all personality types, I see these traits not only in the people who are making the news, but in those who ostensibly report the news.