I used to complain a lot about Facebook. I thought it was occasionally interesting, but mostly it was just annoying. I rarely cared what people had for breakfast, and I never understood the appeal of games like Farmville. I believed that Facebook was making people lazy about building and maintaining relationships. I had a fairly selfish attitude about the whole thing. I used it to see what had happened to some old friends and to help promote my business and my book.
Senator Olympia Snowe. . .You may love her; you may hate her. And sometimes you may feel both. No matter what emotions she elicits, Senator Snowe has become the latest politician to announce her retirement because of the polarizing nature of the national political arena. After 17 years in the United States Senate, and nearly 40 years of political service to the people of Maine, Senator Snowe announced on February 28 that she would not seek reelection this year. In her announcement, she stressed her continued sense of responsibility and motivation to serve, but she said, “I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.” This announcement reminds us that leadership is exhausting, and one of the most important leadership attributes is stamina.
When describing the design for the proposed monument honoring President Dwight Eisenhower, Washington Post cultural critic Philip Kennicott referred to it as “a relatively small representation of Eisenhower.” He went on to say that the small representation acknowledged that “there were many other men who could have done what he did, who would have risen to the occasion if they had been tapped.” When I read this in George Will’s column, Reasons to Like – and Honor – Ike, I was dumbfounded. I was struck by the naiveté and the disrespect that these words conveyed.
Why do icons and symbols so often outlast our memories of leaders who created them? This question was nagging at me for several days last week after I heard an interview with Sharon La Cruise, whose film, Daisy Bates: The First Lady of Little Rock, premiered on PBS on February 1st. Ms. La Cruise’s film tells the story of a forgotten hero of the Civil Rights Movement. The film explores the life of Daisy Bates, who helped the Little Rock Nine become the first African-American students to cross the racial divide to attend Little Rock Central High School in 1957.
Two of my heroes, Jim and Louise Mulligan, shared the following story with me. While leadership starts with knowing ourselves and what truly matters to us, this knowledge means nothing if we don’t live in a way that reflects it. That means talking about our beliefs and values and sharing them with others openly and proudly. While I value the freedoms I enjoy as an American, this story reminded me that I often take them for granted. Quang Nguyen doesn’t, and the Mulligans don’t. It makes me stop and consider what other values I might be ignoring.