Month: December 2016

 “Who’s the more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?”  (watch) …or foolS who follow him… Mayors and chief elected officials in large cities are not experts in city and county government any more than they are in small towns and cities. They own businesses.  They use their business experience and name recognition to get elected.  The citizens who elect them understand name recognition and political influence.   Politics and the governmental political structure being what it is, the larger the city or county, the more likely that a new Mayor or County Commissioner has patronage privileges and brings in his/her direct reports.  This typically happens in strong Mayor-Council forms of government, which mirror state and federal governmental structure. Blind Loyalty These bureaucrats have one job- blind loyalty. …

Currently I live in Wheeling, WV.  How I got here is a long story which has nothing to do with cowardly leadership.  Well, in a way it does, kinda.  Not how I got here, but how I am still here.  But that’s for another discussion. One leadership lesson has taken me a long time to, well, not learn, but accept.   To me, it is so common-sense, so second nature, to want to be a leader.  I’ve always enjoyed it, and I’ve always thought that was what everyone aspired to be:  the boss.  The person in charge, the one who gets to make the decisions.   I’ve always thought I was pretty good at it (what person in charge doesn’t think they are pretty good at it?).  But a lot of people…

I read a lot.  I almost exclusively read books on Leadership, blogs on Leadership, magazines on Leadership, even things written on the stalls in interstate rest stops about Leadership!  I give talks on Leadership and contrasts of leadership styles.  It’s an interest and study I’ve had for as long as I can remember. My wife is a great Leader (not because she’s my wife but because I’ve seen her in action and I’ve seen how her staff respects her and how she follows through and tackles tough problems and does what great Leaders do). She reads almost exclusively science fiction.  Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and anything Disney might turn into an animated movie.  So what someone reads has nothing to do with how much they know about…