A Leader's Challenge

I was reading an article by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Covenant and Conversation, Beha'alotecha 5771) where he was describing types of challenges that Moses encountered during the time of the Exodus (highly recommended, link at bottom). He quoted the work of Prof. Ronald Heifetz at the JFK School of Government at Harvard. In that work he describes two types of challenges encountered by a leader, technical and adaptive. Briefly the technical challenge is simply one that requires a response by the leader to a specific problem. For instance, providing aid in an emergency situation or defending the nation in response to an attack.

The other challenge, the adaptive challenge, requires the leader to respond not necessarily with a unilateral action but by changing the mindset or circumstance of the people effected by the challenge. Only by doing so can the challenge be resolved. The solution to the problem lies within the people not by an externally imposed response.

For instance, in the case of our national girth problem, obesity. There is no governmental action that can fix this regardless of the attempts with the soda tax or the manipulation school lunches. The change must come from within the people. The leader must address this challenge by altering the behavior of the population. In the case of the enormous public debt and massive entitlement spending there is no externally imposable solution. The population must change its mindset from one of government dependency to one of self sufficiency. From one of selfishness and the mindset of entitlement to one of self-sufficiency and not rely on government to take from others so they can give it to me. In the case of white-black relations, there is no imposable solution. The leader must lead by altering the mindset of the "victim" that he/she is "oppressed". He must lead by example demonstrating that we are all individuals in this country with equal opportunities. We can all get as far as we can based on our own talents. That we are not victimized by our color, sex or sexual preference.

This is where true leadership lies. Unfortunately BO is incapable or unwilling to rise to the adaptive challenges. He tries to respond to adaptive challenges with technical government imposed solutions. He believes the central government can fix all of our problems and not put any demands on the population to accept changes to their sense of entitlement. We need a leader who believes in the people that we can rise to the occasion to solve our problems. We need a leader who will tell us the truth that the federal government is NOT the answer to our problems and often is the cause and that the solution lies within us.

I was optimistic after watching the republican debate the other night. These are much stronger candidates than I had believed and I think one will emerge who will be a true leader. One who can respond to our challenges and lead our country by transforming us as a nation. One who will not impose ineffective and expensive technical solutions to problems that actually require adaptive responses that require changes within ourselves.

http://www.chiefrabbi.org/ReadArtical.aspx?id=1767