January 8th I wrote a post called Leaders who DON’T: politicians. It must have struck a chord because it kicked off some great discussion. Here’s a sample.

I started by saying

We have no leaders, let alone statesmen, just ideologues, elected by like-minded ideologues, who care only about getting reelected, bringing government money back to their constituency and making lucrative connections in the event they aren’t reelected or are caught by term limits.

Albert Einstein said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

Eric Eggertson agrees, “Too true. It seems politicians have lost the knack for making the right decision, even if it’s not popular.”

Ron@TheWisdomJournal commented, “I heard one time that politicians think only about the next election, but statesmen think about the next generation. I’m pretty sure all the statesmen are gone….”

Bob Turek says, “This whole “drive to power” attitude has yielded politicians who are always using their current position as a stepping stone to the next…The use of position to overwhelm others while competing for the next position leaves little room for doing the right things.

Ivan Rios thinks “We are way below the level of thinking that created the problem.”

Ren Garcia tells us “There is the Christian concept of a Servant-Leader. The name says it all: a person who appreciates the needs of the people he leads and follows them…We actually have a living Servant-Leader here in the Philippines…A parish priest saw that the needs of people of his province were not being met. He and his parishioners got together and captured the governorship against all the guns, goons and gold of the traditional politicians (tra-pos, in the local vernacular, a slang word for “dirty rags”).”

There’s lots more. Intelligent people and civilized discussion, not rhetoric.

I hope you’ll find the time to join us and add to the conversation.

Your comments—priceless

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 3:00 am and is filed under About Leadership, Leaders Who DON'T, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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