Vacuuming Leadership

We Americans have been bemoaning a “leadership vacuum” in politics – and other matters – for some time now. Is there really a leadership vacuum, or has it been vacuumed away from us?
Allow me to explain.
In multiple parts of life, this author has been accused of “taking over” when a job needs to be done. It comes sort of naturally. In the last week, particularly in church choir, the leader has come out a few times (the first incident was upon request from the followers who were lost) and has gotten very frustrated with the number of people who don’t pay attention, can’t find their place, don’t have their music in order, don’t think to check the inter-net – in short, help themselves – unless their personal comfort is effected, and then, well, there is no sacrifice and no stopping the individual from satisfying his or herself.

Uh-huh. This is NOT how leaders behave. (Trust me. Whether I want it to happen or not, I end up in an unofficial leadership position where ever I work.) It is, however, how Americans have been trained to be.

Somehow, popular American culture has placed the self – and putting self before everything else – ahead of traditional sacrifice and taking responsibility. After decades of marketing and other sorts of campaigns that emphasized compromise and offered guilt-free shedding of virtues, faith and ownership of fault, Americans no longer, as a regular course of action, learn and display the character traits that shape great leaders. Could this be the reason that leadership is so lacking? Could it be that we are no longer teaching our young adults what true leadership is all about and what makes heroism heroic?

We Americans are desperate for real leaders. Leaders that lead by example, take responsibility for what happens under their watch, have the strength of moral and ethical conviction driving them and are willing to make personal sacrifices of comfort, treasure, resources and “friends” to get jobs done, be it balancing the federal government’s budget, speaking out with honesty about the demise of civility in political discourse, or acknowledging that this vacuum of leadership is destroying our country and our culture. It isn’t happening simply in politics, but in many other aspects of life. People aren’t willing to put themselves on the line unless they get something out of it. That is not leadership. It is opportunism.

It’s incredibly sad – and, I fear, will remain the status quo until true leadership and a spirit of sacrifice comes to the fore among those who have the country’s best interests at heart and are willing to give everything they have to maintain America’s place as a true world leader.