Is It What You Hoped For?: Perceptions and Realities For 21st Century Leaders

By Jack Corbin Getz

WHY do people seek leadership in today's turbulent political and social climate, routinely walking a razor thin line between success and personal ruin? Like never before, significant leaders live in the crosshairs of a battle with a Woke, Cancel Culture that enjoys nothing more than routinely destroying the icons and images of society. Truthfull

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: May 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885901116

Jack Corbin Getz

Jack Corbin Getz served a lifetime in education and nonprofit leadership. He describes himself as a contrarian philosopher because he always asks WHY? about things that most simply accept. He shuns easy answers to complex questions saying "There's always another side of things to explore." In 2010 he published his first book, Praying When Prayer Doesn't Work. See samples of Jack's work at: acontrarians.blogspot.com

Book preview

Chapter One

PERILOUS TIMES

WATCHING THE NEWS on television was something I used to do…incessantly, bordering on fanaticism. When things were going my way, or my side was doing well at villainizing the bad guys, I was happy. Then the tables turned about a year ago and the media people I trusted proved unworthy of my trust, and those I continued to follow were delivering such bad news that I chose to crawl into my media hole trying to de-stress and regain a sense of mental equilibrium. My values, my country and my emotional well-being were shifting seismically under my feet and pulling the media plug was the only way to ensure that I could begin my internal, emotional and spiritual healing. I was once sure that, like Superman, America would always pursue truth, justice and the American way. I am doubting that is still true.

Yet any competent historian will easily recognize that truth has always been elusive, and every historical era faced the same basic question with which we wrestle today: Who can we trust?

Today, instead of blindly obeying the church, the king or the even latest strong man, we are in the grip of Post Modern political realities which challenge old comfortable values with new unsettling ideas and realities. No police? No gender? No faith? Really?

Our current crisis is the Covid pandemic which broadsided the world like a large truck running a red light. It arrived just before another highly divisive presidential election. The stakes for both sides seemed unusually high, but again, a good historical search will reveal that divisive elections are often the norm, not the exception. Emotions were high and accusations of corruption from each side created unsettling protests; in some cases unfortunate violence erupted across the nation. Added to this, racial tensions resurfaced creating the notion that another civil war is indeed a possibility.

There is little middle ground for debate or disagreement. Distrust, false information, and a pervasive mistrust of authority - and media - led to a palpable crisis of truth, and a vacuum of public trust. Government leaders and journalists are considered the least trustworthy societal leaders, according to Edelman's new 2022 global Trust Barometer," a survey of 35,000 respondents across 28 countries.

A majority of people globally believe journalists (67%), government leaders (66%) and business executives (63%) are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.

Around the world, people fear the media is becoming more sensational for commercial gain and that government leaders continue to exploit divisions for political gain."⁴

Countless millions internalized the strife as forms of anarchy were seen on the news. Then the second unnoticed pandemic of this era blossomed in the form of mass depression and anxiety. Americans internalized the stress; many, like me, dropped out, lost confidence in authority, entered camps of similar individuals who all fruitlessly longed for a reset button just to discover who we were again, what we had become, and what bombshell was coming