Terry Newell is currently director of his own firm, Leadership for a Responsible Society. His work focuses on values-based leadership, ethics, and decision making. A former Air Force officer, Terry also previously served as Director of the Horace Mann Learning Center, the training arm of the U.S. Department of Education, and as Dean of Faculty at the Federal Executive Institute. Terry is co-editor and author of The Trusted Leader: Building the Relationships That Make Government Work (CQ Press, 2011). He also wrote Statesmanship, Character and Leadership in America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and To Serve with Honor: Doing the Right Thing in Government (Loftlands Press 2015).
All in Governing Ourselves
America’s current tit-for-tat approach to Iran can lead to war. Leaders of democracies need carefully developed and widely supported strategic thinking before plunging into military conflicts.
Public servants who have taken an oath that requires loyalty to the Constitution are now subject to ad hominem attacks.
Exciting presidents may be fine, though we should be wary of them. Boring is not necessarily bad.
The coming months will test the American experiment in self-government. It is a test we dare not fail.
Children deserve a childhood which today, for too many, is fleeting and endangered. We all suffer as a result.
Whether we have ticker tape parades may be no big deal. But the lack of unifying goals and pride in what democracy can give the world is.
I am an American and Jewish. I always thought I was a good American and a good Jew. Yesterday, the President of the United States told me I was neither.
On Independence Day, we should recall our founders, who took the hard way against the world's greatest power. The longer we take the easy way, the steeper the price we pay to address our nation’s problems..
Current immigration policy is a failure of elected officials. It divides us from each other, increases distrust of the law and pulls Americans away from their compassionate instincts.
Americans love to shout “unfair!,” but what’s fair differs depends on who’s deciding. Checking our emotions, seeing the world through others' eyes, and seeking compromise help bridge gaps in our views.
Whenever the military is asked to serve political purposes, as it was recently in Japan, it threatens our Constitution.
Fearful of backing down, nations may back into war. As Memorial Day approaches, it is worth recalling lessons from Vietnam.
In science and technology, the balance between humility and hubris is hard to judge. Much of that work goes on out of view and most of us lack the knowledge to evaluate – or even understand – the work itself.
Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were the Jeremiahs of the 19th century, calling the nation to live its founding values. We need Jeremiahs again.
Stories take facts and weave them into meaning. A nation needs unifying stories. Without them, it is like a ship unable to find a harbor.
If legality is the sole standard incumbent on a president, we risk a presidential playing field devoid of ethical expectations.
Our ability to deliberate about core public issues we face is compromised by poor understanding about our Constitution and history. Too many of us cannot pass a test of basic civic literacy.
When most Americans look at government, they see only a negative picture shaped by those with axes to grind. To many, the government shutdown is thus no big deal. What they see is, sadly, a glass half-empty.
Americans yearn for moral leadership. Without it, we will fail to achieve the promises we made in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The pardon power was designed to protect those wrongly convicted and contribute to healing the nation in times of turmoil. It belongs to the president alone, but how do we decide if it is properly used?
