Trump On Leadership

A vital part of the art of leadership is the ability to unite those being led.

America is commonly considered to be divided. That means the nation has not been led in recent years. President Obama has been concerned about his legacy and the press has queried as to what it will be. His legacy is he divided the nation.

President Trump has inherited a divided nation. His election is not the cause of protests and riots, it is merely the occasion for them. The spirit of nonconformity has been perking under the surface for some time waiting to boil over. Occasional instances of it bubbling to the surface have been seen recently.

President Trump has a challenge like few presidents before him. He is doing things differently and proposing new and innovative ideas. In summary, things are changing.

When there is change a part of the brain known as the amygdala is activated. It is involved with our emotions, survival instincts, and memory. When change occurs it involuntarily calls for a fight or flight response. Then reason must kick in helping a proper response to be reached. Without it an irrational response often occurs. The amygdalas of America are overloaded at this time. Some want to fight, thus protests and riots. Some want to engage in flight, thus withdrawal and refusal to be involved, even moves to Canada.

The great majority of Americans are reasonable and willing to wait to see how the new administration is going to perform.

If the reformation proves to be positive, things will revert to a more harmonious society. However, even if things do dramatically improve there is a significant segment of our society that will not be placated. They don’t know what civility is. Unimaginable as it seems there are millions who have never been part of a positive productive group. They don’t know what it mans to live congenially with persons unlike them.

Link a large number of these with persons who professionally incite protests and riots and violence erupt.

If there is a positive productive new era to emerge the voices of the dissidents will be diminished.

Amid our past presidents, good and not so good, are a variety of types and temperaments, but never one quite like President Trump. However, such a broad spectrum of leaders has been used to the advantage of the nation to give cause for optimism regarding President Trump being a positive force to lead our nation to a reset of values.

Charting a new course involved change and that brings us back to the amygdala and the fight instinct being stimulated.

Some are inevitably going to react like spoiled children who have had their favorite toys taken away.

There is the irrefutable spiritual component involved in which many believe, as did Benjamin Franklin, that “God governs in the affairs of men.” How and to what extent varies. An analysis by Pew Forum reveals 92 percent of Congress are professing Christians. Nine members of the President’s Cabinet are Christians. There are other faith groups involved with kindred political values. Couple that with the fact 72 percent of the American population are Christians and surely there is enough spiritual guidance to be gained to help transform and unite our nation.

Like it or not, I saw a poster recently with a likeness of Jesus in the background and the caption: “Someone did interfere, rather intervened, in the election, and it wasn’t the Russians.”