Posted on 12.30.2013

Void

In my 77 years of experience on earth, I have never seen the scarcity of capable leadership as critical as it is today.

When someone speaks of leadership, most people's minds go immediately to politics and there's no doubt that the lack of qualified leaders reaches into the very top echelons of government, but the problem extends deeply into the social, moral and business world as well.

One of the greatest causes for the multiple divisions in America can be traced to lack of leadership. Social upheaval, gigantic bankruptcies leading to government bailouts, the slow demise of unions, the lax moral attitudes of many of the younger generation can be traced directly to lack of sensible, responsible leadership.

Politicians pandering to voting blocks, business leaders taking reckless chances with stockholder's money, union officials making demands a company cannot meet and rabble rousing racial leaders who preach dependence rather than self reliance.

One of the prime roles of a leader is to appoint or hire personnel capable of handling autonomy, those with the savvy and common sense to know how far to go without asking the advice of their superiors and how far not to go on their own.

I have been in business for over thirty years and responsible for the payroll and the bills but the only job I can do adequately is entertain, so I do that and leave the day to day running of the business in the capable hands of a small cadre of folks I trust implicitly, knowing that if they reach the point of making a decision that is outside their authority to make, they will run it past me before moving on.

Being surrounded by competent, dependable and trustworthy employees is perhaps the most vital part of leadership and retaining and respecting those people is essential to having a successful business.

There are no unimportant jobs in the CDB. There are times when the drivers have the most important jobs in the whole outfit as they drive the buses and truck through the midnight hours with everybody else's lives in their hands.

Personally, I have no problem relinquishing authority to employees to give them the latitude to do their jobs, but I think in many cases leaders develop a bad case of megalomania and try to make all decisions on all levels themselves. Then there are those who take little or no responsibility at all and things fall apart with no input from the top.

Racial leaders who blame all their problems on outside influences are actually expounding the theory that their race cannot accomplish anything on their own and have to have help from an outside source. When they really should be blasting gangs, unwed teenage pregnancy, drugs, absentee fathers and violence and energetically promoting self-reliance, education and work ethic.

Many of the churches in America have turned into little more than social clubs as liberalized ministers forsake the teachings of the Bible for a more socially acceptable message with few absolutes and a lot of gray areas.

Union leaders trying to maintain their power, promise their membership the moon and try to saddle companies and governments with unreasonable concessions, causing companies to move out of the country and state and city governments finally go bankrupt and the membership loses much of the pensions they depended on to fund their retirements.

I don't need to go into vacuum of leadership on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue; just mentioning Fast and Furious, Obamacare, IRS, NSA and Benghazi says it better than I ever could.

And lastly but most important of all, parents have advocated their responsibilities, allowing young children to watch trash on TV, not emphasizing the importance of education and work ethic, accepting the loose morality of the street and a thousand other things in the day to day life of their children that determine what kind of person they will turn out to be.

Man is meant to be under authority with our Creator at the pinnacle and capable and dedicated mortals up and down the chain of command leading by example.

Somewhere along the way our compass got out of kilter, we need some outstanding leaders to right the ship.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels​