Today’s my view is about vacuous decision making. There are two prominent western leaders that stand accused of this. One leader is already in office the other will soon be elected. But these leaders stand accused of a lacking of forward planning, a lack of principle and rather ironically just not being a good enough politician.
The problem of these two leaders and in general vacuous decision making is an important one to tackle and has two real major and profound implications.
The first major implication is a lack of real effective leadership in changing or implementing their view for their countries. This is important as the leaders move from leaders who stand at the front and charge into battle first, into mere super mangers. Both leaders display an inclination to mange a situation out of existence rather than lead their respective countries to a principled decision. While just managing a situation means there is a very strong chance of a large compromise, it creates no real outcome, no clear understanding of any situation emerges. What does emerge is a half cooked idea, what does emerge is a fudge and what does emerge is trouble later on down the line. An example of this(without making it personal) is health care reform in America, without clear a decisive outcome health care reform has petered on for nearly fifty years with no side being happy and no one every truly understanding how health care works and where health care should go. Both leaders stand ready and accused of turning every issue into a situation similar to American health care reform
While the first issue was to do with reforming a country and implementing a clear a decisive vision the second major issue manifests itself in leadership especially abroad. A leader whatever he/she is or thinks must be decisive, bold, relentless and strong. Yet both these leaders yet again appear to have all the tendency of a super manger and not even a third rate leader. Neither leader wants to take any sort of lead in their respective spheres of influence, neither leader wants to lead on Afghanistan and neither wants to lead on Iran. Thus due to their lack of leadership their countries influence will decline(they will be happy to manage that decline), their soldiers will continue to bleed heavily while both leaders dither on decision making in Afghanistan and lastly will they look to manage Iran, it will go Nuclear.
In short managing a situation and a political system has a place and a virtue but management is not and must never become an ideology. Especially in times like these we need clear decisive and principled leadership
