S633.1.2.RB - Leadership Gap

                                                             Leadership Gap
     In my years, I have noticed that my attitude towards leaders have changed, for many different reasons. In general, I would have to say that I have less trust in leaders, or that it takes a lot more to convince me of their abilities to lead. I used to look up to someone who was in a position of leadership with a bit of awe, like they had something I didn’t have.  However, as I have gotten older I realize that I am just as capable of being that leader as the next person. I have truly come to understand what people mean when they tell someone who is about to give a speech to just visualize everyone naked. It means that when you strip off the clothes and title of someone, they are the same as me.

     There absolutely is a changing trend between each generation. The change is in the respect. I fully believe that the amount of respect that leadership gets has continuously diminished over time. In my opinion, the reason for this decline is because of the amount of times leadership has been in the wrong. Now, I also believe that this is due to the amount coverage certain things get on the news, but even in leaders that have not been covered on the news are subject to the same type of scrutiny. For example, the situation with Eron back in the 90’s. Leadership seemed to be doing everything right. Employees were happy, or so we thought, and the company was making tons of money. However, it was the leadership that was crooked and brought employees down with them. Trust was broken and it was relentlessly talked about on television and the news. This broke down people trust in the corporate leadership, which in turn caused other people to start questioning their own companies’ leadership.

     I believe that the reason this has occurred is because of a higher awareness of it happening. I think it is a vicious cycle of the news making people more aware, but for every person that was only made aware, there is a person who was given an idea. That person that had the idea put in his head now commits the crimes, which get televised, reaching others who repeat the action, which then gets televised. Lets take ISIS for example. People didn’t even know who ISIS was until 9/11, yet their numbers increased significantly after the news started saturating the public with ISIS and how they were recruiting. You take a fresh young mind who just hears about ISIS, is curious about what they are and decides to research them, and then is on the next plane to Iraq. This is the same premise with the decline in trust of leaders, especially those in media.