Be. Know. Do.
The United States is not a democracy – we are a representative republic. If we were a democracy, our days would be filled with voting on various issues – everyday would see a new round of referendum votes between reading about the issues of the day. Instead, we elect representatives to keep up on legislation and do our voting for us and make our laws.
We also elect a leader of our government to execute our laws. So every two years we have a voice in who we want to write and choose our laws, and every four years we choose a leader to execute those laws. That’s about the only real voice we have in our government. In between those two, four and six year intervals, the government is on autopilot – our autopilot controls are in the Constitution. The Constitution keeps those electees on track and protects us from them.
Pretty easy to understand isn’t it? But it ain’t happening these days. The whole key is that we elect a leader – but too many of our two dozen Presidential candidates on both sides don’t understand the concept of leadership. They stick their fingers in the air, check the wind direction and charge off in the direction of the prevalent breeze. And that’s the real reason American stature has suffered over the last few decades.
In the Army, we all learned basic leadership from the Army Regulation 6-22 (AR 6-22), which was built around the simple phrase “Be. Know. Do.” which the 6-22 describes like this;
Army leadership begins with what the leader must BE, the values and attributes that shape a leader’s character. Your skills are those things you KNOW how to do, your competence in everything from the technical side of your job to the people skills a leader requires. But character and knowledge while absolutely necessary are not enough. You cannot be effective, you cannot be a leader, until you apply what you know, until you act and DO what you must.
Get that? Can you apply that simple concept to any of the current crop of Presidential-wannbes? More than likely not. Too many want to BE whatever they think the majority of the voters want them to be, not themselves. They only want to KNOW what people think are important, and they only want to DO what the majority of people want them to do.
Lyndon Johnson started his presidency as a leader – he decided that we had to roll back communism and he decided to begin roll it back in Vietnam. But then the politician in him took over and when the war became unpopular, he decided that he was a political liability to his party and chose not to run in the ’68 election – admitting that defeat was more politically expedient than actually fighting the communists and turning back the lesion on mankind. Johnson fell back on his experience as a politician making decisons based on the well-being of his party instead of the well-being of his country.
Ronald Reagan was a leader. He decided to roll back communism and stuck to his guns for the entire eight years of his term – despite his detractors. The whole world called him a cowboy, protesters worldwide make caricatures of him and called him a jackbooted Nazi. The press called him “Rambo” and a drooling idiot, but despite all of the pressure against him, President kept doing what he thought was right. He embodied the values he wanted the world to see in our nation, he knew the issues, he knew the enemy, he knew our strengths and weaknesses, and he did what he knew had to be done – and kept doing it in the face of criticism. And he knew how to pick his fights – even fights with the people on his own side of the aisle.
George W. Bush is a leader. He’s continued to carry the fight to the Islamists despite the massive criticism of him and his policies. He embodies our values, he’s a perfect representative of this country. He knows that our enemy won’t surrender, so he hasn’t surrendered. And he’s always done what’s best for the country despite the fact that only 30% of the people still support him. He’s doing the right thing as a leader with little regard what’s being said about him, or the party. He’s doing the right thing for the country. You may not agree with every decision he makes, but you pretty much know how he’s going to decide on any issue put before him – he’s consistent and dependable.
Contrast that to Bill Clinton’s presidency; Clinton didn’t lead, he stuck his unclean finger in the air and said the things people wanted to hear. He was wildly popular (if you can believe the polls) but he accomplished nothing. By the end of his term, Al Gore was running on Clinton “accomplishments” that the administration had to be dragged towards by the Republicans. To this day, you can still hear Democrats talking about their “fiscal responsibility” and Clinton’s successful welfare reforms. Hell, he refused to sign two previous welfare reform bills, but finally was forced to sign before the 1996 and became the only campaign promise he kept.
But, back to the present; look at the presidential wanna-bes. Hillary Clinton has decided that the best thing for her campaign is to call for rescinding the vote for force against Hussein – a political decision based on the cacophonous cry from the Left for Clinton to surrender to Islamists, not on our national security. That’s not what a leader would do. She is definitely not what I would call sterling as far as her character goes, either. Where were those FBI files all of those years?
Rudy Giuliani is no different. His answer to the abortion question in the Republican debates the other night wasn’t the answer a leader would give. He came down firmly on both sides of the issues in one sentence – instead of making a clear statement that didn’t require an analyst to tell us what he meant. He gave a politician’s answer – not a leader’s answer. And someone who’d cheat on their wife while he was supposed to be doing the people’s business isn’t my idea of a leader, either. If he’d cheat on a woman to whom he’ made a solemn vow, what would make him keep his word to the People to whom he’s made a solemn vow?
The last time we elected someone directly from Congress to the White House was Lyndon Johnson – a career politician who ended his career by throwing himself on his sword for purely political reasons. Since then, we’ve mostly elected governors who’ve had EXECUTIVE experience, not political experience. People who have experience making decisions, not people who’ve only cast votes. People who lead.
The Army says leadership is;
…influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization.
That’s how I’ll make my decision. Be. Know. Do. Politicians aren’t leaders.
