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 Statesmanship
Until we see evidence that leaders have learned from their mistakes and improved,, we should be skeptical about the value of an apology. An apology without a subsequent change in behavior just deepens disappointment and increases distrust.
Politics without good role models is like a home without good parents. The former leaves the next generation at a loss to see how to behave in public life just as the latter leaves them floundering on how to behave in family life.
Unlike corporate boards, which can often act in secret, the leaders of public institutions must meet demands for transparency and consultation. The Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia learned this hard lesson when it tried to fire the institution’s president. But she had a lesson to learn as well.
In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln fashioned a story to help the nation see where it had been and where it needed to go. The best leaders tell stories that guide America forward.
It’s the bane of public servants that Americans want statesmen and stateswomen – people with the courage to do the right thing for the country despite the personal consequences – but almost routinely punish them for doing just that.
What does James Madison, a product of the eighteenth century, have to teach us about the practice of politics in the twenty-first? Simply and profoundly this: he knew how to lose, and he knew how to win.
