By Jennifer Kluge
July 16, 2009
Is it just me, or do you think leadership has waned in our communities? Perhaps it’s that we have overused the word so much that it has lost its might. I don’t see the leadership that is needed for today’s times. Someone to inspire us into action. The economy, the change in our country’s needs, and the issues that we face in the world are all challenges that demand leadership. As a business executive, I am used to a strategic plan, a mission, a vision for the path my team is on. What is our country’s path, your state’s path, your community’s? I don’t see it, I don’t know it and no one has communicated it to me.
I think we are waiting for a great leader to arise, with time and history to judge. In the past, it’s been mostly government and religious leaders creating a path with powerful personas such as John Hancock, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, and Mother Teresa. When was the last time we had such a powerful persona? Are they out there, but not being heard? Is there too much information available and that the leaders are lost like individual trees in the information forest? Or worse, perhaps they don’t exist in today’s times; they have not yet evolved with today’s technology.
While we have the best communication tools that history has ever seen, with access to so much information yet no one is using it. There is no clear vision for where to focus. How we can come together? Many of us have an urge to make an impact, help create change, but how?
Who are today’s leaders? I challenge everyone that the leadership in this new age is us. You and me: the private sector — the Presidents and CEOs that lead their teams and impact their local community. By example we lead; it’s on us.
