Today brings a new entry from a very creative thinker, Robert Fritz. But before I introduce Robert and his piece, I couldn’t help but share my amusement with a comment made by Senator Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential debate. For it echoed the great conversation we’ve been having about honesty, which Jim Kouzes argued is so important. Barack, with obvious strategic aims relative to Senator Clinton, talked about what he thinks voters are looking for in a President: “What America is looking for,” he said, “is straight answers to tough questions.” It will be very interesting to watch whether this criteria is one that continues to be discussed and whether voters feel like they can figure out who’s best to bring “straight answers.” Now, let me introduce a totally different tack on our discussion.
Where Jim Kouzes turns to the data on what people want from a leader they admire and willingly follow, Robert Fritz - author, consultant, musician, and film-maker - paints a different picture of what America needs in a president. Fritz is best known for his book The Path of Least Resistance, a book about creativity, that has huge implications for leadership. Fritz’s work on the power of vision and on creativity is useful for individuals as well as for organizations. Creativity? Yes! One could argue that to be president is all about creating: a President paints pictures, finds resolution among differing voices, orchestrates agreements, envisions possibilities others have not, sculpts new policies, and builds teams. In short it’s highly creative work! . Today, with the characteristic passion of a creative thinker, Robert Fritz tells . . .
What I Want In The Next President
It’s a hard time for leadership in America because so many of those in present positions of leadership have poisoned the well.
I am particularly thinking of President Bush, who has been the very worst American leader I have seen in my lifetime. I was born when Franklin Roosevelt was President, I can remember Truman when I was a little boy, the first person I planned on voting for was Kennedy in ‘64. Up to now, I thought Nixon was the worst.
Now Nixon looks fairly good to me in his understanding of international affairs, especially his daring move of opening China. While I didn’t like Reagan’s politics, I thought he was a true leader. He had a positive vision for America, and, in many ways, he represented what was best in the American spirit. I feel about him the same as a business leader I know felt about Kennedy. He said, “I didn’t agree with anything Kennedy did. But when he was president, I felt better about being an American.” That’s about how I felt about Reagan.
But now the world has changed. The new political strategy, the one that Carl Rove exploited to a tee, is to distort what the opponent has said, making it seem to be absolutely ridiculous. Then, the talking points are arguments against something the opposing candidate never said and doesn’t think. This “new” politics is a throwback to the old “Big Lie,” pioneered by Joseph Goebbels. And it has worked and worked, election after election.
I hope Abraham Lincoln was right about not being able to fool all the people all the time. Reality has a way of showing up and eventually the truth rises to the top. But before it does, there is a lot of dysfunctional politics that has a chance to fester and grow. When this is the case, interesting ideas - which can come from anywhere within the political spectrum - are hard to explore, good will is hard to generate, and nonsense becomes the order of the day.
The leadership qualities I would like to see for the next president must be understood by the tenor of our current times…
I long for intellectual honesty. I long for creativity. I long for good sense. I long for the long view, where American interests are seen from a vantage point of decades and centuries.
I long for someone who was as cultured and street smart as JFK.
I long for someone who understands history, our own and that of the world. I long for someone, who like Kennedy, does not blindly follow the advice of the generals, but combines that advice with a sense of proportion. (Had Kennedy followed the advice of General Curtis LeMay, we would have had a nuclear war in 1963.)
I long for the insight of an Eisenhower, the guts and inner strength of a Truman (who didn’t mind surrounding himself with the likes of a General Marshal, who he considered much better than himself.)
I long for someone who can put complex thoughts together and express them with a simple elegance like Theodore Roosevelt could and Bill Clinton can.
I long for a leader who can lift us with the highest of aspirations, feed our public soul with greatness of purpose, instill in us the fundamental causes of truth, justice, respect, innovation, freedom, and adventure.
I long for a leader who can touch that incredible creative and affirmative thing that is so much part of the America spirit.
I long for someone who truly loves freedom of the individual, and sees that, rather than the political system of democracy, as the formative cause that can powerfully compete against radical anything. After all, the point of democracy is to assure freedom of the individual, not simply to hold elections.
I long for a leader who has read and understands Thomas Jefferson’s monumental writings on the separation of church and state, and has read and understands The Federalists Papers. I long for a leader who has read Theodore White’s In Search of History.
I long for a leader who is motivated by love rather than hate. I long for a builder, a practical visionary, a leader who can forge a new and better path through the dangers of the times, and can play our very best hand: demonstrating how people from such diverse backgrounds, religions, thoughts, cultures, traditions, ethnic groups, and customs can become one people.
©2007 Robert Fritz
