Perspective

I struggle sometimes, because not many people share my perspective.  I should not say it that way, better there are not a large number of people that have had my experiences.  I am not better, or smarter, or more anything than anyone else.  I have just had the experiences of my life that have informed my opinions.

I saw a video that I shared on Facebook yesterday, of a motivational speaker, who was black, addressing an auditorium of black students (middle or high school).  He was disrespected, there was general laughter and conversation while he was trying to speak.  He called them to task, in a way that I am not sure would have worked by anyone else, outside of the military.

He talked to those kids the way I talked to junior sailors when I was in the military.  I was leading people in the work place when I was 21 years old.  I am now approaching my 49th anniversary of arrival, I would have been conceived this month in 1967.  For 28 years, I have interacted with, motivated, taught, learned from, directed, pleaded, counseled, instructed, discussed, cried, drank, partied, laughed, fought, supported, protected, shielded and otherwise led other adults.  Leadership is a collection of all those actions.  It is the holistic relationship that draws out the best in others.

Anybody can manage people.  If you make a list, see that it is communicated, and report any failures, you have succeeded in managing people.  It is not enlightening, it is not valuable, it is not useful.  Without leadership, it is a vacuum position that sucks energy and vitality out of any organization.  With leadership, management can be an art form, and have the most amazing impact on any organization.  Without leadership, no organization will succeed.

I say that to express how important I feel leadership is.  I do not have a doctoral thesis developed from "observations" of application of principles.  I do not have a diploma that grants me expert leadership status.  I do, however, know leadership from the receiving and providing ends of the spectrum.  I am always interested in other's take on this singular quality of personality.

Leadership is God given, or it is born into you.  Some people have abundance of it, just as some people have abundance of physical abilities.  I played football and baseball, but I did not have an abundance of talent or ability at it.  I enjoyed it, but it was a game for me, and skills that I struggled to master.  There were others that excelled with almost no effort, they were naturals.

Leadership works that way.  Those not gifted with it naturally can practice the process, learn to do some of the things, develop some skills.  But, unless you are a natural, you will not be excellent at it.  I know that many thousands of books have been published claiming to be the secret to "learning" leadership, and, as a Navy Chief, I call bullshit.  You cannot learn it.  You can practice it to some benefit, to the extent of your abilities, but it is not a learnable thing, any more than Brett Favre, Cal Ripken, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretsky, and probably some soccer player, learned how to be great at their sport.  They were all born with the abilities, and honed the craft to excel beyond all others at their field.  That is how leadership is.

Muggsy Bogues is the shortest man to ever play NBA basketball.  At 5'3" he is actually shorter than I am.  He did not get onto the court of an NBA arena just because he worked extremely hard.  He got there because he had God given gifts that he worked very hard to hone.  Some combination of speed, jumping ability, hand-eye coordination, spacial awareness and body control worked to allow him to capitalize on all his traits and be superior.  That is how leadership is.

You can be a naturally gifted leader and be really crappy at it.  You can be a naturally gifted leader, and never hone those skills and abilities and ignore that capacity.  You can be a naturally gifted leader that never is given the opportunity and never know you have the capacity.  But, you cannot be someone without the born ability, and develop into a great or even capable leader.  You just can't.  I have watched hundreds and hundreds of people try it and fail.  I have watched hundreds of people claim their particular snake oil would work to overcome your lack of natural ability, and fail.  I have watched, read and evaluated hundreds of people that have studied and dissected and claimed to know and explain how it works, and get it wrong.

The truth is, it is like love.  You know it is there, when you experience it.  Most people look at it and wonder what the hell made that work.  No one has developed a scale or measure that accurately details it.  But it is real, accepted, and infinitely important to the human progress.  No one can fake it till they make it as a leader, anymore than they can fake it till they make it as a lover.  You will fail every time, and never make it in love or leadership, if you are faking it.

All that is to say that we have allowed management and social nicety to impact the ability of leadership to function well across our society.  Because we have allowed a culture of mutual prohibited success to develop, because we have lost sight of the fact that there really are winners and losers in situations and in life, we have crippled the effectiveness of leadership at large in our culture.  Good men and women stand up, and do the job, and it looks and sounds and feels so good when we see it.  But the crushing blandness of the politically correct and stagnant society we are developing overwhelms it almost immediately.

It explains the Trump and Sanders phenomenon.  They are playing to this on opposite ends of the spectrum.  And, it is not leadership, it is rabble rousing charisma.  They are spouting the salving words to the basest instincts of the distinct ends of American society.  Trump speaks to the isolationist, scared, bereft and kind of hopeless middle of the right end of the spectrum, that believe there is a place and time for things, but there is an order at which they come about that cannot be violated.  Sanders speaks to the disaffected, ignorant and idealistic middle of the left end of the spectrum, that believe there is a reason that the world owes you something, and everything should be equal, and that change is spontaneous, instant and lasting.

Both viewpoints are wrong.  Change does not respect the order of things, but instantaneous and spontaneous change is never permanent.  That is why the vast middle of America, regardless of race, party or beliefs, do not trust either of the charlatans.  They know, instinctively, that what they are hearing is impossible, and fraught with tragedy and danger to attempt.  It is not that they like it, they want to see it change immediately and permanently, but in the right order with the right outcome.  But, deep inside, they know that what they are hearing does not work, and it will not ever work.

Leadership is missing.  Why could Reagan say some of the same things that Trump is saying, and accomplish some of the things that Trump bleats about?  Because he was a leader, it was instinctive and natural, and he could get others to understand the vision and the process and effect that change.  Why could FDR say and do some of the things that Sanders is screaming?  Because he was a leader, it was instinctive and natural, and he could get others to understand the vision and the process and effect that change.

We remember both Reagan and FDR as singularly capable and remarkable leaders.  We denigrate Nixon, Ford, Carter, Clinton, Obama, as leaderless suits that held high office.  Yet, we never consider that difference.  We never consider what some say, and what some do.  For instance, it is really kind of befuddling to me how Cruz (and Obama before him), has traction over Christie, Jeb Bush or John Kasich.  (With Obama it was Wesley Clark, a real executive leader).  There is no there, there.  There is zero demonstrated leadership.  There is great bombast, great grandstanding and personal aggrandizement.  But, there is no leadership, no progress, no unity of purpose or direction.  No outcome of importance or lasting effect, that is not negative.

We have intermixed our religion and politics in the Red States equation, such that the equation will never solve.  We have completely invalidated our religion and social morals in the Blue States equation, such that the equation will never solve.  Until someone stands up and explains the Red or Blue equation adequately, exposing the errors that prevent solution, and offers a path to a Purple equation that works for our good, we are going to continue to suffer Clintons, Bush Jr's and Obamas.  Men that win on ego and personality and lack any kind of internal leadership structure that result in lasting and permanent improvement.

When you listen to the Republicans, only one leader emerges, that remains, and that is Kasich.  He is the only one that understands that a Red America is no better than a Blue America, both are flawed, temporary and full of suffering.  America has always been and always will be Purple, a combination and consensus.  It is not perfect, but it is close enough from all angles to lift all boats.  There is not a single voice of leadership on the Democratic side.  And that is just all there is to say about it.  When Webb dropped out, it left empty suits, resumes and alot of corrupt and stupid rhetoric.

When it comes right down to it, leadership and love are very real social qualities that you only know when you feel it.  You can have $10 billion, you can have held every required office on the checklist, you could have smoked a whole trash bag of dope at Woodstock, you could have given sermons on Sunday for 10 years, but if you aint got it, you aint.

And, folks, from someone that knows it, practices it, has made their living from it, let me tell you, in my considered and professional opinion, they aint got it, in a major way.  We better be very careful.  Charisma can parade as leadership, but it often veneers sociopathic tendencies.  Manson, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, they had charisma, not leadership.  They were sociopaths, who had no limits, no internal strings filtering their actions.  I am not claiming that any of our candidates are sociopaths.  But, I am very much cautioning you that charisma feels good, sounds good to your ear, but once you sleep with it, it is gone in the morning.  Whatever comes of that night, is all on you for the rest of your life.

We have that experience with Clinton, Bush Jr, and Obama.  Still, we have not learned as a nation.  Still we want to listen to the barn burners, the hate-mongers and pie-eyed idealists, on both sides of the equation.  When Red + Blue does not equal one, it equals Depression, Great Recession, Bubble Collapse, Inflation, War in Iraq, ISIS.  It is on us to no longer accept that, in the Presidency, or the Congress.

If the candidate only tells you what they will repeal, what they hate, or describes what you know is impossible, (ice cream for everyone after free college and all the dope you can smoke, or scarlet A's on the prairie dress of the loose women who would want an abortion), it is charisma.  It smells bad, after you know what real leadership is.  That is why people on all sides of the aisle hate Trump, Clinton, Sanders, Cruz.  It is charisma and an empty suit, or pants suit.  It will never work governing, or leading.

Trust me, it will be painful to prove we can't solve either of these equations.  In a land that wants a government servant to serve all people, but only chooses its leaders and representatives based on how pure they are to one end of the spectrum or the other, it is foolish to claim we don't know why it is this way.  If you want to make progress, vote for candidates that will go do something doable.  80 foot walls paid for by Mexico, free college, health care and everything else by only taxing the rich, there hundreds of others.  These are not doable.  It is ideological purity, and it is regressive and it is what we have lived with for 24 years.  We have been on the major roller coaster since then, and felt its impact.

Obama is not to blame.  Sure, he did not make good decisions or take us, together, where we need to go.  But, neither did Bush before him, or Clinton before him.  We are to blame, we voted for them, and the cast of clowns around them in Congress.  Until we change what we are doing, it will not change in Washington.  They are getting unbelievably rich, with an unbelievable pension and life long benefits better than the best corporate plans in America.  They truly don't care in any meaningful way about you, they only care about the goal posts and where we have moved them to.  You know how you can tell?

Because you don't want a world Sanders describes, we defeated it in the Cold War.  And you don't want the world Trump describes, we defeated it in the last World War.  You want the world that Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Paine, Madison described, that took into account all men, hopefully.  They were leaders, none of them got all that they wanted, but they made action happen that lifted all boats.  Who sounds the most like the founders?  It is not Cruz, no matter how much he reveres them.  It is not Trump.  It is not Clinton.  And it surely is not Sanders.  We wrote a prohibition on what those four describe in 1789, and we call it the Constitution.  It is not the Book of Leviticus or the Communist Manifesto.  It is a documented crafted by leaders, intended to be implemented and overseen by leaders and set up to be protected and pruned by leaders.

Your vote is your piece of this, and it is priceless.  Don't give it to just anyone, or for good words that appeal to your basest fears and cheapest desires.  Things that are worthwhile are hard, and involve compromise within hard standards.  If it was easy, Trump would have never gone bankrupt and Clinton would have used the secure government server for her email.  But, you can't control the release and timing of a public sector server, can you?  And you can't very well tell me how wonderful you are as a business person, when some of my tax dollars went to bail your business interest out, with no personal impact to your wealth.

Priceless, that is what leadership is.  And it should be expected of those we elect.  That is what the Founders based the Constitution on, not the Bible.  They had all read the Bible, John Locke and a host of others.  But, the document they ratified and sent to the states was based on being enacted and maintained by leaders.  We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, we are required to find leaders, not snake oil salesmen.

Please, it is for all of our sakes.

GLYASDI