Learning Leadership

This is being written on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November, 1963.  I remember the day well in that I was, with my wife, and the wife of a prisoner at McNeil Island in Washington State standing at the dock to take the ferry.  The man from whom I received the ferry ticket asked if I heard that the President had been shot.  I had not.  We arrived at the island and when I saw the flag at half mast, I said to the ladies: The president is dead.  Fifty years have elapsed, and serious evaluation has been raised on the meaning of Kennedy to history.  It appears to be agreement that he was not, in his 1,067 days as president, a great head of state but also that he did exude a kind of energy and personality that permitted national acceptance of his persona as leader of the country.  The private side of the man and the politics of the time are being revealed in larger understanding than ever before.  The Cold War standoff with Russia was in full conflict.  The American context was marked by many millions of satisfied citizens; unemployment was under six percent; median income for the family was increasing; gasoline cost 29 cent a gallon; and, a loaf of bread 22 cents.  A modest home cost $12,000 to $13,000 while jobs were available to prepared workers – continuing professionally in both large and small cities, and gaining the benefits of both the urban and suburban contexts.  The world crisis of competitive events shown in the Cuban aborted invasion at the Bay of Pigs, the standoff of the Russian military build-up in Cuba, the flight to space by the Russians, the decline of military preparedness in America, and the myriad of other issues that plagued the Kennedy days seemed somewhat distant, partly unknown to the public.  The miserable health and personal sexual issues of the president were largely unknown at the time, and the press seemed mesmerized with the glamour of the first family.  All of this drama had an influence on the government, and the course of history.  The story and the family will be remembered for decades.

My purpose here is to note that freedom for the people, and the order of peace among nations, with the improvement of provision for the needs of the people in every land and clime require, in the modern context, better prepared and objective leaders.  The negatives of so many leaders are too much with us.  There will always be something against every person, but the matter needs to be addressed at a higher level than the attractiveness of personality, the admiration of style and speaking ability, the force of politics, the tension of partisanships, the emotions of self-interest, and the confusion about values – personal and public. 

The point to be made is that we must find a way to educate the populace doing the voting and the emerging leaders, what their duties and privileges are in their government.  How do we gain the vision many of our forefathers advanced?  It is a good vision asking conduct, a vision open to expansion in the direction to which it was designed.  Democracy has survived even though some of our forefathers wondered if it could.  Some nations continue to believe that the American system is an experiment, and that the jury is still out.  In recent years there has appeared considerable despair in America on whether or not the present system can present a broad, objective, peaceable, efficient and citizen-oriented system that will offer an adequate government and followership of life that by choice, application offers the good life for its people.

It ought to appear in the public and private schools of the land.  There ought to be a required course or courses taken by all citizens, born or emigrated so to qualify as voting citizens.  There ought to be courses for leaders, emerging or elected, that must be taken before public office can be taken.  To take a public office the person must be educated for the assignment of a chair in civil government.  The courses would include matters of ethics, relationships with others in management, analysis and public problem solving, constitutions and precedents, civic responsibility, business operations and money management, history and change, international and intercommunity affairs, employment and progress – and the sub-divisions of these.  It would contribute to greater understanding on the application of government for the people.