America’s Leadership Disease and The Treatment

There is a leadership crisis in our culture. Politics. Business. Sports. Families. Wherever you turn the results of this crisis are evident.

Some of the symptoms are political stalemate, lack of trust, dysfunctional teams, cheating in athletics or broken homes. There are a lot of approaches to fixing these symptoms. But the problem is we are treating a PNEUMONIA patient with cough medicine!

The Disease

Clarification: I am addressing the leadership in my home country. But reading the international news illustrates that what I am talking about is not uniquely American. The crisis in leadership - the disease we are all facing - crosses borders and time zones.

There are a lot of people who write books and speak about leadership and offer some quality treatment plans. But, treating the symptoms of the the leadership crisis and hoping the disease gets better is not working. The root cause of the disease that many well-meaning authors, consultants and academics are ignoring is:

CHARACTER.

Let’s face it. We do a pretty good job at evaluating and measuring someone’s competence. For politicians we can look at elections won and bills passed. For business leaders we can look at stock prices, quota attainment, or cost controls. For coaches or athletic departments we can look at wins and losses. For families we can see the size of a house or the child’s grades.

But the disease of poor leadership continues. Look at some recent leadership failures in politics, business, sports and families:

• Any political scandal of the last decade
• The classic cases of Enron or Bernie Madoff
• College athletic recruiting issues or FIFA
• Parental neglect due to careerism or disrespectful children

The failures above are rarely the result of someone not knowing HOW to do the job or knowing WHAT they should be doing.

Don’t misunderstand me. Incompetence in any of these roles is damaging. But if that is the case, training departments, schools, and the self help sections of bookstores provide plenty of resources to educate us.

So why aren’t they more competent if there is a bevy of resources? Is pride keeping them from continually learning? Is it fear? Either way, it is a character issue

These leadership failures can almost always be traced back to a character issue not a lack of competence.

• We don’t need more savvy politicians. We need more Leaders of Character.
• We don’t need more MBA’s in business. We need more Leaders of Character.
• We don’t need more coaches who know the X’s and O’s. We need more Leaders of Character.
• We don’t need more affluent parents. We need more Leaders of Character.

Until we begin to put the proper focus on character development in ourselves and the people we are responsible for developing, the leadership disease in America and the rest of the world will not get better.

Do you want a snapshot of your character? Take the Quick, Free and Private - My Mirror Character Assessment here:

www.MYCHARACTERTEST.com

The Treatment Plan

Many authors and consultants will mention the word character and tell you that you need to have it. But very few of these people actually tell you HOW YOU DEVELOP CHARACTER!

In a nutshell, you develop character by practicing character in the small things and the big things.

You have to do what you want to be!

Unless you begin doing the hard work that is required to build up your character, you will never develop those critical habits a Leader of Character must have. Character is the most critical area to develop and it is 100% in our power to do so!

This is not a quick fix. It is not a crash diet that will suddenly get your character in shape. Developing character takes work. It takes consistent effort. And you are never done!

It takes understanding that the little daily decisions we make impact our character. Each decision we make either put us closer to the person we are meant to be or further away from it.

Our book Becoming a Leader of Character - Six Habits that Make or Break a Leader at Work and at Home goes into detail about HOW to develop the Habits of Character that are causing so much of our leadership crisis.

Courage, Humility, Integrity, Selflessness, Duty, and Positivity.

Imagine if our political leaders, our business leaders, our coaches and athletic departments, and our fathers and mothers all developed these Habits of Character. Would there still be a leadership crisis?

The Bottom Line:

I consider myself a Character Evangelist! I am passionate about treating America’s leadership disease with more than just cough syrup. We must treat the root cause in order to beat this disease! We (that means you and me) must do a better job of developing our character and the character of the upcoming generations.

That has been my father’s cause for most of his 83 years on Earth. He has passed that passion on to me. I am a Character Evangelist and will not stop writing, speaking and praying about the need for Leaders of Character in America.

Question:

Will you join me?

Dave Anderson is coauthor of Becoming a Leader of Character - Six Habits that Make or Break a Leader at Work and at Home with his father General James L. Anderson (USA Retired).

You can find Becoming a Leader of Character on Amazon by clicking here:

bit.ly/LOCBook.

You can also find Becoming a Leader of Character at Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million and other retailers.