Leadership Program of the Rockies

Plaudits and admirations gush upon leaders whose manner is tolerant and considerate of opposing viewpoints.  History nonetheless allows that some who rule by treachery rise to ferocious power, too. 
 
In the first instance, Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals acclaims Abraham Lincoln's phenomenal appointments of political rivals to his own cabinet. His picks were prompted by the urgency of slave states seceding to form the Confederacy.
 
Though a capricious gambit, Lincoln's adroit management of a rancorous cabinet afforded him the counsel of "the very strongest men."  He (they) successfully concluded the Civil War and maintained the Republic.
 
In suitable contrast stands the example of Gleichschaltung Laws imposed by Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime.  The term gleichschaltung, meaning "synchronization," came to define the successive process by which the leftist Nazi party accomplished rapid authoritarian control over key aspects of German society - the elimination of unsupportive influential organizations such as trade unions, opposition parties and independent churches.
 
In the name of democracy, the Nazis took direct control of organizations the new government could not eliminate such as schools, the media, regional and local jurisdictions.  The government even assumed ownership interests in principle businesses and industries including automobile manufacturing, banking and healthcare.
 
Gleichschaltung became a convenient term to justify radical liberal policies as necessary and patriotic responses to an extraordinary economic crisis.  Many German citizens embraced the term as intellectual anesthesia to rationalize languid acceptance of the new powers, violence and force used to compel their compliance.
 
As their businesses and institutions became tools of the Third Reich, legions of German citizens explained their torpor as essential, even righteous, under the new democratic order of Gleichshaltung. 
 
Prudent Americans must fully understand the times we are now in and alertly discern the quickening steps of the country's leaders - whether they soberly respond to extraordinary economic crisis in the candid transparent style of Lincoln or by the disorienting treachery of tyrants. 
 
Among LPR's goals is to train citizen leaders to recognize the differences and thereby grow the capacity to defend liberty - to maintain the Republic.

 

President Barack Obama recently defended a proposal to limit tax deductions for charitable giving.  The idea touches an important element of leadership. 
 
As a nation, ours has always been defined from within - by the greatness of its people, especially in challenging times.   For more than two centuries, civic leaders have shown deference to the charitable instincts of the American people as an efficient way to marshal resources for the public good.
 
Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835 classic Democracy in America noted the American tendency to form voluntary associations to address charitable objectives.  He wrote, "The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools."
 
Contrasting the bureaucracies of France and England with America's charitable tradition, de Tocqueville wrote, "Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association."
 
Charity is a theological virtue - an habitual and firm disposition to do good.  Capitalism's clear record is to support and produce enormously higher levels of true charity than does bureaucracy.
 
Replacing the rational, virtuous, charitable impulses of millions with the institutional force of the bureaucracy would signal a nation defined by rulers than the liberty of free people.  Defenders of capitalism must lead in charity, understanding it as an individual virtue.
 
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, "If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave." This thought is often summed by the phrase Lex orandi est lex credendi (The law of prayers dictates the law of belief). 
 
In other words, what we exhibit externally reflects what we believe internally.  LPR is a charitable association predicated upon liberty, personal responsibility and leadership. 
 
Bureaucracy could never conceive such an important undertaking.  In America, we wouldn't expect it to. 

 

Cardinal virtue emerged at retreat

This year’s LPR Retreat was a milestone in the development of our program.  Speakers of local and national caliber were insightful, prescient and inspiring. 

The flood of new faces at the annual event confirmed a hunger we’ve perceived for the past several months.  More than an appetite for ideas and camaraderie, the new and larger crowd at the LPR retreat was an expression of urgent citizenship and rational assessment of the country’s weakening status. 

Citizen leaders used the retreat to connect, build, plan and visualize the role of freedom-seeking doers in a nation losing its vision.  Partisanship was scarce.

The purer concern was for advancing proven values, ideals and economic themes – supplanting bureaucracy with liberty and weakness with strength.

Beneath the many topics swirling through seminars and sidebar meetings, the unmentioned theme was that of temperance – a virtue rarely visited nowadays, but one more indispensable than ever.

Crisis moments thrive on confusion.  Those whose ambitions entail power and dominion love a good crisis.  They refuse to “let one go to waste.”

Resisting such tyranny is often equally errant especially when predicated upon fear.  Still, resistance is essential.  At such a time, temperance is the moral virtue that brands our best leaders.

The moral virtue of temperance restrains the passions of ambition and pleasure.  It places intellect and reason above impulsiveness setting limits in order to attain that which is honorable.  It is the cardinal virtue that places noble ideas and wholesome values higher than the interests of the struggle itself or, in our case, a political party.

Understood in the proper context of temperance, a good political victory is not a matter of winning an election.  It is instead a function of the goodness proposed, advanced and secured.

Temperance is not compromise. Temperance suggests leaders should not just play to their strengths and inclinations.  Their personal desires and appetites should be restrained when necessary for a more desirable greater good. 

Words like “moderation” and “sobriety” are often associated with the virtue of temperance.  At a time when some see economic crisis as an opportunity for partisan gain, the eye of the LPR leader is always on the sacred prize of liberty.

Our LPR family is enormously deep in political talent and ambition – all of which is needed now as temperance refines our ways.  Such was the cheerful, confident and sober theme of the 2009 LPR annual retreat. 

Of the several threats to freedom, bureaucracy ranks high on the list. So why do prosperous organizations, including entire nations, inevitably strangle themselves by the tentacles of freedom-crippling bureaucracy? 

 

Bureaucracy stems from a desire to formalize virtue. When a particular habit or policy fails to deliver order, the impulse of leaders, especially in a democracy, is to impose bigger and more comprehensive rules to make sure the mistake does not happen again. 

 

Over time, reliance on virtuous people yields to a misguided dependency on virtuous rules, regulations, policies, checks, balances and systematic accountability. This is the essence of bureaucracy. 

 

In bureaucratic cultures, practical judgment and personal virtues are deemphasized.  Praise and appreciation instead accrue to those who follow the rules and who go by the book.

 

From there, the law itself comes to define public morality.  “If it is legal,” bends the logic in a bureaucratic society, “it must be acceptable.”

 

Freedom, however, thrives by prudence, a virtue predicated upon practical reason.  It entails discernment of the true good surrounding every situation and the moral means of achieving it. 

 

Prudence is antithetic to bureaucracy.  It elevates individual responsibility and secures liberty.
 

St. Thomas Aquinas identified various parts of prudence.  He characterized acquired prudence as perfected through the exercise of acts and lessons. 

 

Also, he wrote of gratuitous prudence which is infused and reinforced by virtuous habits, for example, those modeled by good parenting, religion, perhaps schooling.

 

The Founding Fathers believed every man should share in the governing of America according to the free choice of his reason, and that it is proper for all self-governing citizens to possess the virtue of prudence.  Abraham Lincoln spoke persistently about the necessity of prudence.

 

It is a core American virtue about which Americans scarcely speak anymore. Yet, prudence is the most powerful and complete remedy for the disease of bureaucracy. 

 

Prudence promotes freedom which is why we rely on it, and speak often of it at LPR.

In all our searching for virtuous leaders there is scarce mention anymore of the one foundational virtue upon which so many others stand:  Fortitude.

 

Bob Schaffer, Chairman

 

A week before the 2008 election, radio host Hugh Hewitt addressed a Denver political audience. He asked, “Are you all in?” 

 

Hewitt’s question clarifies a central theme of leadership.  In order to succeed one must be willing to take risks and put certain comforts aside.  His point was reminiscent of the 1148 BC election.

 

Immediately upon the death of Israel’s ideal judge Gideon the race to replace him was on. Of his seventy sons, Abimelech was first to declare his candidacy. 

 

Abimelech ran a negative campaign designed to neutralize his competitors early.  He murdered all of his brothers; except for Jotham, the youngest, who escaped.

 

Just as Abimelech was to be inaugurated, Jotham appeared. Jotham called on righteous, capable Israelites to come forward and assert honorable leadership. None would. Jotham pleaded for a virtuous leader through a parable.

 

The trees needed a king for themselves, Jotham said.  The olive tree was asked to serve first, but refused not wanting to give up its oil by which men and gods are honored.

 

The fig tree was next asked to serve, but refused not wanting to give up its fruit.  Then the vine was offered the job, but it refused not wanting to give up its wine which cheers both gods and men.

 

Eventually the thorny bramble accepted the throne. Chaos and misery ensued. 

 

Ignoring Jotham’s parable, Israel went ahead and crowned Abimelech. Chaos and misery ensued (Read full story in Judges 9).

 

The moral of the story is also Hewitt’s point.  When good people won’t go “all in,” thorny brambles do. Chaos and misery ensue.

 

Edmund Burke put it another way, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Yes, good leaders must be willing to give up good things. 

 

At LPR, we’re all about organizing good people to be “all in.”

No matter the complexity of a political debate, conservatives win when they define the core element of liberty in a question. 

Too often, the wonkish among us are prone to nail down the details of a case at the expense of the most powerful line of argument – that liberty is better than bondage.  The advantage goes to the speaker who can simplify the complex yet command the supporting details in an elegant way.

The great classical philosophers approached moral questions by finding the logical core and following it to a rather black and white conclusion.  To them, only contemporary habits and human weaknesses make resolving such questions difficult.

Familiarity with basic philosophy and western history can be of enormous help in structuring a powerful debate approach.  Patrick Henry summoned the best of both elements in making his famous 1775 speech on the question of war with Britain.   

Henry dismissed the emotion that clouded his opponents’ logically weak argument noting, “We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth and listen to the song of that siren ‘til she transforms us into beasts.” 

His argument touched on many facts of the debate, but he oriented each to his proposition that liberty was better than bondage regardless of the risk. 

Achieving liberty is the ultimate objective of the LPR program.  Through our many graduates, friends and acquaintances we’ve added dramatically to what Henry called “the millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty.”  

It seems a matter of common sense for leaders to establish high expectations in order to achieve ambitious goals. Just because a leader's vision is grand, admirable or exciting, however, does not mean he should automatically expect his team to accomplish it.

The heft of a leader's skill is proved in executing strategies that facilitate others in achieving objectives. High expectations must be set for teammates. But that's not enough.

A leader will lead best by truly believing his team can and will succeed. This is the essence ofhigh expectations.

In 1963, Harvard's Robert Rosenthal first
published a paper in the American Scientist providing evidence that psychological researchers' expectations might have an influence on the performance of their research subjects. He speculated the same effect - the Pygmalion effect - would be observed in classrooms, too.

Indeed, years of subsequent research by Rosenthal and hundreds of his peers on the Pygmalion effect have confirmed the self-fulfilling prophesy of a leader's expectations. Whether in the laboratory, in the classroom, in management, on the battlefield or in sports, psychologists have documented the rather dramatic effect high (or low) expectations have on performance.

It appears we all communicate a great deal about our attitudes toward students, coworkers, subordinates, even our own children in ways that transcend ordinary language. The most calculated words and tactics can't hide what we honestly think and believe about the world and about others. These feelings have a tremendously powerful effect on how others perform and how things eventually turn out.

German dramatist and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) wrote, "Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be."

LPR graduates have turned out to be great leaders, and they should be. We expect all our students to turn out that way.