Having had the of privilege writing for Forbes.com for two months shy of four years, and being tasked to write about, among other things, leadership, which is one of one of my areas of expertise (if I may claim that term), I have repeatedly referred to the below working definition of a leader. It was painstakingly arrived at, and faithfully adhered to, so as to serve as the cornerstone of the class I taught for 15 years in the MBA program and then the MAS program at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
A leader is a person who has - and articulates - a vision, creates change, inspires others to achieve mutual goals, and builds and maintains effective working relationships - all while setting the highest standards of ethical thought and behavior.
It is important to note two considerations. One, that the five pillars - vision, communication, change, mutual goals, and teams - all rest on a foundation of ethics, not policy or position or one particular decision or an opposing other. And two, that this should - in this, the most fiery political year in recent memory - help us formulate our expectations of what, as the headline here says, we should want from our leaders, politics notwithstanding. Although a political candidate is the focus here, this is not about politics; it is about leadership - in an academic way.
Trust, judiciousness, openness, dependability
In 2021, talking about Bitcoin, Former President Donald J. Trump declared that it "seems like a scam." Last Thursday, September 12, he announced he was preparing to launch a new cryptocurrency venture. No surprise, he will make the formal announcement in a video posted on X. Trump's crypto platform will be called World Liberty Financial and will be introduced Monday evening at 8 p.m. I will not be watching.
With the world of cryptocurrency operating on a set of firmly held tenets and principles of anti-regulation and opposition to the world's financial and banking systems, how could a man who again wants to be the leader and defender of the free world not get into a conflict of interest here?
How could this man, who is supposed to separate himself from all existing business interests so as to be as impartial and nonvulnerable as possible, begin a new for-profit venture right in the middle of what almost everyone is calling the most consequential election in our time?
How could this man objectively and fairly navigate the wildly volatile dynamics and fluctuations of crypto life? In the past 24 months, the global value of cryptocurrency has been as high as $3.2 trillion and as low as $820 billion. For the record and for perspective, the global GDP is $109 trillion (Source: International Monetary Fund).
How could this man earn my trust and confidence? How can he give me what I'm looking for in a leader?
This is not about opposing views, differing opinions, or clashing positions. We can live with all that, as we always have. It's about the foundation on which we all stand.