Time for Change or Time for Leadership: The Presidential Candidates

It won't be long now before we know who the two candidates will be for the most important job in this country. The way it looks at the present time, it will be Senator Barach Obama for the Democrats and Senator John McCain for the Republicans. There is no need to say that this is the most important election that our country has ever had because we have been faced with difficult situatuations many times before and have elected presidents who we felt would be the best in the position. A couple of examples are Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. Those were extremely tough times. Lincoln faced the Civil War and Roosevelt had to deal with the great depression.

As we know, there are philosophical differences between the Democrats and the Republicans. The short, probably oversimplified, difference is that the Democrats are for the working man and the Republicans are for the wealthy and big business. This may be true but a difference in philosophies is not what I want to discuss.

What we need in the person who is elected president in November 2008, is a true and effective leader. We need a person who is able to lead this country in a positive manner toward meaningful and honest goals. The leader of this country must be value-driven and principle-centered. This person must have the courage to stand by these values and principles in the face of adversity and not do what is politically expedient because he or she is a Democrat or Republican. We need a leader who does it because it is the right and moral thing to do It is going to take a true leader to lead this country in times of economic deterioration, a war in which our soldiers are still dying, rising energy and health costs, national security problems, and foreign difficulties. People are losing their jobs and losing their homes. Food and fuel prices rise almost every day, and the United States' position in the world continues to fall because we are viewed as an arrogant nation. As a country we import much more than we export, and the national debt is staggering. Very little in the country is improving. Jobs are going overseas and the infrastructure of the country is falling apart. Our planet is finally showing the effects of abuse and overuse. There are no easy answers to any of these problems but they can all be solved with proper leadership.

Leadership is not a given for people who call themselves politicians, nor is it a given in people who run for President of the United States. However, leadership can be measured and evaluated, and it is up to every American citizen to do just that when selecting the next person who will be our president.

In their book, The Leadership Challenge (1987, Josey-Bass Inc., Publishers), James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner present the results of a survey of 2,615 managers and the 20 top characteristics of superior leaders. The results of the survey indicate that superior leaders are honest, competent, forward-looking, inspiring, intelligent, fair-minded, broad-minded, straightforward, imaginative, dependable, supportive, courageous, caring, cooperative, mature, ambitious, determined, self-controlled, loyal, and independent.

I think this survey serves as a very good starting point when looking at the candidates for President of the United States. The person selected needs to possess all 20 characteristics in order to properly serve the people of the United States and to lead the greatest country on earth.