Leadership, A Most Human Endeavor

I named this blog Headlines and Trend-lines because I believe that a lot of the world is caught up in the noise and doesn’t pay enough attention to the signal.

I think this is a large and growing problem because, plainly, we’re not paying attention to things that matter. We are distracted.

A perfect example is what happened over the last three days. All headlines, all Twitter chatter focused on the chaos within the White House.

Who’s up, who’s down? Who’s in, who’s out? The Mooch, General Kelly, Priebus, Sean Spicer, Ivanka, Jared, President Trump.

It’s like a bad game of musical chairs.

Meanwhile, North Korea is inching closer and closer to having a nuclear weapon that is capable of hitting the continental United States. This story gets a NYT headline and a think tank report, but little more.

The world is more dangerous today than it has been in arguably 50 years. Richard Haass from the Council on Foreign Relations calls it “A World In Disarray.”

The Russians hacked our elections. THE RUSSIANS HACKED OUR ELECTIONS.

ISIS has caused unimaginable pain and suffering — and millions of people, across entire countries and continents, have fled their homes. It’s the worst refugee crisis since WWII.

Let that settle in for a minute.

And China is moving fast. Besides a show pageant at Mar a Lago, American and Chinese interest and tactics are quickly diverging.

And what does our president do? He tweets.

That’s not enough.

China is quickly becoming the largest economy in the world. They are spending billions and billions of dollars in the emerging world. They are rapidly becoming an indispensable partner to countries in Africa. They are by force or persuasion establishing a Chinese-first power structure in the Asia-Pacific region. As we Americans pull back — on everything from trade to defense — the Chinese are quickly stepping into our place. This fundamental shift has never before happened in my lifetime.

The magnitude of our challenges will require our best and brightest, but we are working with a self-imposed deficit.

In the end, these problems are solvable. Indeed, we are, all things equal, well positioned to make the next fifty years better than the past fifty years.

But it requires leadership.

The type of leadership that is unsexy and unglamorous. The type of leadership that steadily improves trend-lines and avoids fleeting headlines.

The type of leadership where difficult choices are not pushed off or avoided; where we grow and nurture talent; where we care for our community; where we look beyond quarterly earnings; where we grow as people, as organizations, as companies, as leaders.

This isn’t partisan. The left and right are equally bad, and the whole framework is outdated. And it’s not just politics.

Leadership is missing in business too.

In a leaderless world, corporate executives make 150 times more than the average worker.

In a leaderless world, executives choose short-term dividend payouts over long-term research and development investment.

In a leaderless world, venture creation declines; critical skills atrophy; and owners and workers become two tribes without common language, customs, or interests.

Maybe what we need is not more news, technology, or faux rage.

Maybe what we need are more leaders.