Sunday, August 8, 2021

Bill Crawford: How do Our Leaders Decide What Matters Most?

 Once upon a time many community and organization leadership training programs around the country featured sessions on “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” authored by the late Stephen Covey. Practicing these habits was seen as a means for people to harness ambitions and work with others to get important things done.

Twenty years ago, encouraged by Mississippi Power Company which employed such training and funded by The Riley Foundation, The Montgomery Institute in Meridian brought leaders from all sections of the community together for such training. Additionally, 7 Habits training was embedded into the community adult and youth leadership programs. Today, only short versions of the training remain in the adult and youth programs, the community-wide training long abandoned.

Also back then, several of us ventured to an Anheuser-Busch training facility in Missouri to become certified 7 Habits trainers. What followed were numerous sessions with community and leadership groups in east Mississippi. I particularly remember a session for the Mississippi Educational Policy Fellowship program that included future Jones County Junior College (now Jones College) President Jesse Smith. (Some of it stuck didn’t it, Jesse?)

One particular aspect of that training has stuck with me through the years. It has been an essential part of my few successes. “Focus on what matters most,” taught Covey. It is a derivative of the third habit “Put First Things First.”

Of course, Covey provided a principle-based context and taught a process a person should use to determine what matters most, both personally and professionally.

Jumping to the present, it appears our leaders in Mississippi do focus on what matters most, but often without that vital context that helps harness ambition and foster togetherness.

The Bible provides such context too. A few years ago, Dr. Rhett Payne, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Meridian, taught a Bible-based series on faithful and effective leadership that reminded me of 7 Habits. There are others 

Common verses providing context include: Matthew 6:33, “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness”; Ephesians 4:22-23 “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires”; Philippians 2:3-4 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others”; Matthew 7:12 “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets”; 1 Corinthians 10:24 “No one should seek their own good, but the good of others”; Ephesians 4:29 “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen”; Galatians 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Do your leaders use such context to decide what matters most?

Use this P-word comparison to help clarify your perspective. What matters most to them – performance or popularity; prosperity or profit; possession or philanthropy; progress or power; people or politics?

Hmmm.

Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.


14 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do our leaders decide what matters the most?

They are told by their Money Masters AKA the Central Banking families that control this planet.

They may not be told directly, or even know who is giving the order. Sometimes they are told through occult rituals and secret society meetings. Sometimes they are told at gatherings like Bilderberg, Davos, the UN General Assembly, and Bohemian Grove.

But they are always obeying the plan and creating the narrative for the those who have not been invited into the inner sanctums.

The narrative comes through the corporate media. Through predictive programming in film and other entertainment. It is reinforced by the corporate news media. And supported still further by the controlled opposition such as Fox News, Matt Drudge, InfoWars, ZeroHedge, and Coast to Coast AM.

Krusatyr said...

"1st is 1st" should be branded into Labumba's forehead: he really must learn to put Jackson's basics before his radical political nonsense. It's not that he's corrupt so much as immature and reckless with a tangled Marxist fantasy for his raison d'etre.

Anonymous said...

You hold him, I’ll get the jacket.

Anonymous said...

Every time I think Crawford can't get any worse, he proves me wrong.

Anonymous said...

I would have never thought Bill Crawford was a high priest in the Cult of Steven Covey.

But after thinking about for about it for a twenty seconds, it does make perfect sense.

Anonymous said...

3:04 has swallowed too many red-pills but speaks the truth.
After learning the same truths, I chose the blue pill.

Anonymous said...

None of these elected politicians or politically appointed bureaucrats are suppose to be our leader. They are civil servants and don’t have a clue what’s most important for anyone. It’s not their job. Protect our rights and our people....blah blah blah. Tate Reeves, Roger Wicker, Bennie Thomason.... lead? /

Anonymous said...

Brainwashed initially by MS Power Company. That explains everything.

Anonymous said...

Civil servants....politically appointed bureaucrats,... politicians.... no leaders of mine.

Anonymous said...

Whatever your personal politics, anyone with an interest in the "politics of COVID" can have a free front-row seat to the real world implications. Florida and DeSantis, with Trump-ian politics in the mix, are going to be an opportunity for study.

As an informed guess, I'd say there is a strong likelihood that DeSantis' "COVID record" (as it stands today) will end his mainstream political future, both statewide and nationally. It is certainly something that Tate and other MS pols ought to pay very careful and close attention. It is impossible to build a real political future (or wide public support and respect) on the backs of a small minority of zealots, whether they are right or wrong, sane or crazy. See, for example, George Wallace, Ross Perot, Donald Trump, etc., etc., etc. I'll further guess that there won't be many COVID survivors or families of those who died from it holding rallies in support of DeSantis, making campaign donations, or putting signs in the yard. As the number in that group soars, his prospects sink.

Soundbite cracks about beer and masks will rapidly lose whatever humor it may have once had and the few supporters it may have accrued will never overcome the number of detractors it engendered, especially after it becomes a weapon and tagline for opponents.

Kingfish said...

Yet Florida remains in the middle of the pack between more restrictive states.

Anonymous said...

"Yet Florida remains in the middle of the pack between more restrictive states."

This is politics. Facts and "facts" matter little if at all but perception is critical. Making cracks on camera about not being able to drink a beer, starting and fueling a shitstorm with cruise lines and other major tourist-related companies (especially in FL), etc. when there are patients who should be in an ICU but aren't because there isn't room looks terrible to the average middle-of-the-roader. Being in the same county with anyone wearing a Star of David and making holocaust comparisons (again, especially in Florida) is, well, let's just say it would be less damaging to be caught in bed with a live boy AND a dead girl. You could probably toss in a goat or two, live or dead, and still not reach the aforementioned level of danger and stupidity.

Ill-considered COVID-related choices that ignore experts, common sense, all while telling voters to ignore their own "lyin' eyes," will end political careers. While it certainly wasn't a prime cause, Cuomo's screw-ups with it certainly added to his being in the position of disgraced soon-to-be ex-Governor; I suspect that his early status as a "hero" with regard to COVID helped forestall his downfall whereas the loss of that status greased his skids out of Albany. Might have been (purely) coincidence in timing, but I doubt it.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of political careers and Tate:

https://mississippitoday.org/2021/08/10/where-is-tate-reeves-during-covid-crisis/

There is an old saying, "Stick with the one that you brought to the dance..." which is often a fine and noble sentiment. But when your evening's date turns out to be Typhoid Mary and she whips out a machine gun and starts firing at the band, the caterers, and your friends at the dance, it might be time for a little less sentiment and a little more common sense and action.

Anonymous said...

As to Cuomo and the politics of COVID:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/books/cuomo-book-penguin-random-house.html

It makes a person feel darned near psychic.


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