Rise up a genuine leader Who is driven by moral character and integrity Who commits to truth and responsibility Who models personal discipline and accountability Who earns respect by giving it Who is humble in self-imperfections and gracious in others’ Who nurtures trust and collaboration
Rise up a genuine leader Who is we-oriented, not me-oriented Who articulates vision with clarity and infuses pride in purpose Who disables barriers to people development Who confronts social ills with positive solutions Who seeks understanding and resolutions in contentions Who fosters creativity and inspires hope
Rise up a genuine leader Who can undo chaos and create order Who is composed instead of clamorous Who promotes diversity of viewpoints in unity of purpose Who invests in people and worthy dreams Who is transparent, trustworthy, and teachable Who upholds faith in a better future and spurs actions toward it
Rise up a genuine leader Who values people and ideas over profit Who knows virtue sustains character, but its absence destroys it Who is considerate instead of caustic Who brings competence with candor Who discerns realities with compassion and directs resolutions with care Who influences people to mutually elevate lives, institutions, and ideals.
Rise up a genuine leader Who is attentive to needs of the people and builds their spirit Who overcomes personal ego, arrogance, and unethical behavior Who rejects conflict mongering Who is consistent and persistent in value-added contributions Who equips and empowers other leaders Who builds an enduring legacy of transformational results
In popular culture, the concept of faith is often derided as a superstition of ignorant people.
But I’d like to advance the notion that faith is required for living successfully every day. And we need not be bashful about it!
After all, what is a plan but the expression of faith in something that does not yet exist?
In order for things that are apparently impossible to transform into things that are solidly real, faith is the PRIME ingredient.
(On the other hand, under the guise of “being realistic,” and often embraced by the willfully ignorant, doubt is the full-stop barrier to realizing any preferred future at all.)
For success in any endeavor, be genuinely faith-full!
Books have brought me into worlds I wouldn’t otherwise know
This past year’s reading has brought me into worlds and cultures I wouldn’t otherwise know. I have visited Nazi Germany (three times), ancient Palestine, Soviet Russia, Revolutionary Russia, Cold War Europe, South Africa, Victorian Australia, Spanish colonization, Antarctica, even those spheres of oppression, depression, gene editing, scientific research, cosmology, and quantum physics.
These books have taught me more about myself and those around me. I have reveled in the wonders of my own body, and have gained insights into wellness, happiness, and better working and personal relationships.
These books have ignited my imagination through creative storytelling. I’ve entered several classic tales for the first time, and have revisited some inspiring old favorites.
These books have expanded my knowledge in a great many subjects: natural, geologic, and cultural history; economics, public policy, activism; exploitation, greed, commerce, philanthropy; psychology, volunteer organizing, and leadership in philosophical differences and changing cultures. And so much more!
My favorites and recommendations are noted with an asterisk. But here are my special mentions:
Most satisfying ending: Angel of Vengeance
Most surprising over what I thought I knew about it: Tarzan of the Apes
Most over my head: The Physics of Immortality
Most annoying: HHhH (author reports true things, then confesses he made them up)
Most wide-ranging scope: Saving the Redwoods
Most spiritually revealing: New Morning Mercies
Most enjoyable biography/memoir: Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story
* Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany, Hans J. Massaquoi
The Handbook for Health: 5 Essential Pillars for Optimized Wellness, Dr. Christopher Turnpaugh with Dr. Cynthia West
The 6 Types of Working Genius: a Better Way to Understand Your Frustrations and Your Team, Patrick Lencioni
* The Body: a Guide for Occupants, Bill Bryson
* Only One Year: How Joseph Stalin’s Daughter Broke Through the Iron Curtain, Svetlana Alliluyeva
The Millionaires, Brad Meltzner
Name All the Animals: a Memoir, Alison Smith
* The Blue Zones of Happiness: Lessons from the World’s Happiest People, Dan Buettner
* The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race, Walter Isaacson
* From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Vern
A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There, Aldo Leopold
* Inkheart, Cornelia Funke
* Inkspell, Cornelia Funke
* Inkdeath, Cornelia Funke
* The Noticer, Andy Andrews
HHhH “Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich”, Laurent Binet
Bethlehem, Karen Kelly
Homecoming, Kate Morton
The Trail, Robert Whitlow
Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
* The Last Days of Night, Graham Moore
* Still Life With Crows, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
* Shackleton’s Stowaway, Victoria McKernan
The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis
White Fire, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Three Sisters, Heather Morris
* Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
Murder in the Lincoln Bedroom, Elliot Roosevelt
* The Scorpion’s Tail, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
The Leader’s Greatest Return: Attracting, Developing and Multiplying Leaders, John C. Maxwell
Mayday, Nelson DeMille and Thomas Block
* The Oath, Frank Peretti
Community Recreation and Parks Handbook, Sue Landes
Financing Municipal Recreation and Parks, Sue Landes
Absolute Friends, John le Carré
* The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, Jim DeFede
Humorous Stories and Sketches, Mark Twain
Murders on Alcatraz, George DeVincenzi
* Palisades Park, Alan Brennert
Skin: Revenge is Beautiful, Ted Dekker
* A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
* Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughes
Just Tell Them I Love Them: a Hospice Chaplain’s Invitation to Live Well, Helen Burke
* Take This Cup, Bodie and Brock Thoene
The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Michael D. Watkins
* Saving the Redwoods: The Movement to Rescue a Wonder of the Natural World, Joseph H. Engbeck, Jr.
* Eternal, Lisa Scottoline
* Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story by Jack Benny and his daughter Joan
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Barbara Roobinson
* Healing Stones, Nancy Rue and Stephen Arterburn
* Angel of Vengeance, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead, Frank J. Tippler
* New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional, Paul David Tripp
Helping train our emerging leaders is always rewarding – both now and in the future! Day 2 of the intensive Pennsylvania Recreation and Park Society’s Leadership Academy included sessions on successful communications and creating collaborative relationships with key stakeholders, a working lunch, but also a few moments for a Class of 2024 selfie!
The strength of my character determines the vitality of my leadership.
It’s frequently denied, but more commonly ignored. We swear we don’t want to know what public leaders do privately—it’s their own business. (Yet the media claims it’s merely scooping up the private dirt the insatiable public appetite demands!)
Perhaps. But we need look no further than the morning’s headlines to document the direct correlation between countless individuals’ private and public behaviors. While it may be covered up for a time by bluster, talent, charisma or other gifts, we can all recall more than a few public failures, or “mistakes” admitted to in which private actions became public scandals.
When a leader’s intentions and behaviors clash, look to character to discover why.
Lance Armstrong, Gary Hart, Anthony Weiner, Jim Baker, Richard Nixon, Brian Williams, Rob Ford, Bernie Madoff, Martha Stewart, Mel Gibson: they’re just a fraction of the more infamous fallouts. Such a list of Exhibit A’s demonstrate the problem is not confined to particular professions, industries, ages or genders.
Here are five characteristics that make character the pivotal point of everyone’s persona:
Character is a foundational morality product. Morality is universally and primarily a social issue, not a religious one. Conforming to the rules of virtuous conduct is good for everyone: virtues are universal and absolute standards that do not change with circumstances, time or point of view.
When virtues are practiced, they always support personal and collective well-being. When rejected by a person, team or community, their foundations corrode and crumble.
Virtue sustains character, but its absence destroys it.
Character is more than talk. In my career, I’ve personally hired more than 300 individuals. As a usual part of my interview process, I ask the candidate to briefly tell me how each character trait I mention applies to them, and I take notes. Regrettably, there’ve been too many times I’ve had to go back to those very quotes to remind employees that their actions have contradicted their testimony.
Nobody ever admits that integrity isn’t important, but our outward actions are the real indicator of internal character, no matter what we say.
We cannot separate character from actions.
Character is a choice. We can’t control the circumstances of our birth, nor little else of the world around us, but we can determine our character. We do it with each choice we make. How we respond and react to life builds it or destroys it a decision at a time. Challenges don’t create character, but they do reveal it as we choose capitulation, compromise or conquest.
What others see of us is mere veneer. No matter how attractive or polished it may be with expertise, charisma or talent, it’s still just thin skin that occasionally gets torn open. The quality of the character inside then spills out for all to see.
Ability may be a gift, but character is a choice.
Character builds up. True leadership is built only as relationships are. As character is proven and relationships grow, so does trust. In that secure haven, a team thrives, a family flourishes, a society succeeds.
Sensible people do not follow those they know are flawed and untrustworthy: relationships dissolve, trust disintegrates and community breaks down. Society is upheld only by popular adherence to a code of principles distinguishing right and wrong.
Moral character brings strength to relationships and society.
Character is limiting—or liberating. Sooner or later, but inevitably, character outs. This is a universal truth, as evident in the ancient proverb—“out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks”—as in the modern maxim: “garbage in, garbage out.”
The strength of a leader is tied to the strength of his or her character. Everything rises or falls on leadership; and leadership rises or falls on character.
Leaders cannot rise above the limitations of their character.
There’s really no doubt: your personal character directly impacts your public leadership.
Standardized testing while I was in primary school reported to my teacher and my parents that I measured higher in “Achievement” than in “Ability.” I don’t know how they reached that conclusion, because by third grade, I really hadn’t done anything yet. But I do remember that this caused some consternation, because that was the reverse of what was considered normal. How could someone achieve more than they were able?
It seemed unthinkable.
Now, nearing the end of my career, I can say, yes, I’ve achieved some things—but it certainly isn’t because of great Ability.
I think, instead, the impetus behind Achievement is a synergistic process involving Attitude, Vision, Initiative, and Collaboration.
ATTITUDE controls action—specifically and primarily my own behavior. With the properly cultivated attitude, I determine what I choose to believe about myself, about my circumstances, about my possibilities, about my potential, and about my future.
VISION sees things that do not yet exist; akin to faith. It comprehends the end of a journey before the travelers arrive. It allows ideas—some little, some audacious, some preposterous—to root, grow, and develop into a preferred future. It believes dreams can come true.
INITIATIVE is what navigates ATTITUDE through all of life’s circumstances toward VISION. It is not permanently stymied, nor long stifled. It posits what-ifs, it explores things unknown, it aligns resources with opportunities.
COLLABORATION engages like-minded others to contribute diverse capabilities and insights, and produce a collective strength that no one can on their own—which is how any one person’s Ability is superseded to produce a higher level of achievement.
Together, an undefeatable attitude, a possibility-seeking vision, an unflagging initiative, and collaboration with similar mindsets creates a dynamic catalyst for achievements beyond anyone’s actual ability.
So after a half-century of first-person application and research, I can confidently declare that Ability is not a direct determinant of success, contrary to the early 1960s educational theorists.
And while you can be justifiably proud of your accomplishments, recognize that greater results can nearly always be co-produced with collaboratively-minded others.
And collectively produce far beyond that of any one’s ability.
The Council of State Executive Directors met this week in Park City, Utah. The annual gathering focuses on trends and best practices of association management, and mutual issues in the recreation and park profession.
But we are more than just colleagues. We are a gregarious, fun, engaging (and exhausting!) bunch who continually and passionately invests in each other. This is my greatest gang of professional associates and personal friends – my collective, got-your-back brain trust. I appreciate and love them all.
This complex image was generated by a young man with autism spectrum disorder. He used a computer program he wrote that solved for the roots of millions of polynomial equations, plotted them on a complex plane, then stacked and colorized them by density on a logarithmic scale. Is that something you can do?
Not many of us, anyway. People who are neurodivergent think differently than we neurotypicals. As a result, they benefit from such unique perspectives that they can often come up with new and creative ways to solve problems. What appears to be a weakness in the way they learn—especially during school age, where teaching methods, textbooks, and testing systems simply do not meet their needs—is actually a unique strength, given the time and freedom to develop.
The creator of this image, and of many others of widely varied design, is our son, who had an awful time in school, but who is now a Research Engineer. Learn more about his story in the book he co-wrote, found at tinyurl.com/4c6bxw4s. To see more of his copyrighted “polyplot” designs, see tinyurl.com/plyplt.
In the 2024 Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump urged supporters to go vote for him despite a life-threatening cold snap. “You can’t sit home,” he demanded. “Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.” (reported in The Week, Jan. 26, 2024)
Jerks have a way of making everything about them, without a care for others.
Trouble is, jerks have infested nearly every area of life. Not only do they harm people, they are often contagious, influencing imitators of their poor behaviors. See above.
But to those who are aware that behaviors have consequences, jerks can be great role models—for how NOT to act.
This short list comes from my personal experiences. My purpose in identifying some of the noxious results is to hopefully arrest the actions of potential jerks before they permanently damage other people.
Belittler. He was the VP at Orkin Exterminating, where I worked as a termite inspector salesman, who occasionally attended our daily 7:30 AM sales meetings to “motivate” our salesmanship. “If your customer doesn’t want to buy,” he declared in all seriousness, “you just bring on the tears.” Another time, he publicly belittled our top salesman in front of everyone, to show (I suppose) who was the real Top Dog. Of course, that motivated our guy to move on to other opportunities. After more than 40 years, what I remember most about Mr. VP is his stupidly uncaring arrogance.
• Be a builder of people instead of a demolisher.
Deceiver. When I worked at Kiawah Island Resort, I directed and sang with a small group of interns who performed every Saturday night at the Pig & Oyster Roast. My boss had hired them based on whether they said they could sing. (I was lucky: they could!) But he continually misled them on their working expectations. They, in turned complained to me. I eventually confronted him about his lying, and he broke down and bawled in front of me. I was just 22 years old myself, and didn’t know how to respond to that. What I remember most is his excessive self-boasting to (apparently) cover up his insecurities.
Micromanager. I became one of the first Recycling Coordinators in Pennsylvania when the state law requiring it went into effect, working for the City of Bethlehem. I reported to the head of the City Health Department. Two memorable quotes from his mouth: “Listen, I know more about this than you!” as he berated a citizen over the phone who had questioned him. And in a particularly revealing moment with me, he confided: “I should have been a cop because I like telling people what to do.” To this day, he has been my prime example of the interfering and ineffective micromanager.
• Hire good people, give good guidance, and let them make good for you.
Yeller. I once took up an offer of no rent from a farmer in exchange for feeding his pigs everyday (upwards of 200) and mucking out the stalls on Saturdays. It didn’t take long to discover his unpredictable temper that could explode at any moment. I got screamed at several times a week, mainly for infractions he seemed to make up on the spot. (He reminded me of the temperamental character of Quint in the movie Jaws.) He never apologized, and then carried on as if nothing at all happened. I remember him as a pitiable, angry man who preferred ignorance.
• Get the best of your temper before it brings out the worst in you.
Bully. I sold my business to a nonprofit group that was to pay me over a period of years, but unfortunately didn’t understand the work involved to make it successful. The Board promptly ran it into the ground in 18 months, and then sued me to get out of the agreement. Bullying can be verbal, physical, social, cyber or legal, as in my case; they stiffed me on 90 percent of our agreed sale price. I could have countersued, but the assets no longer existed. I donated the remains of the business in exchange for them dropping the suit. (See Matt. 5:40 for my legal guidance.)
• If you habitually force others to get your way, or to feel better about yourself, seek interventional help.
Such classic jerk behaviors come in many forms. But perhaps the most insidious are those that arise unchecked from within. How many of us have ever been unintentionally rude, sharp, or disrespectful? Disparaging, resentful, or unforgiving? Pushy, flippant, or ungracious? I know I have at times. The jerk resistance movement must start within me.
MasterPoint:Deny the jerk within to prevent its contagion abroad.
Last year, I participated in a provoking thought exercise with my counterparts from other states. We attempted to develop an alternate term for “recreation and parks.”
Schuylkill River Trail. credit: Visit Philadelphia
Because recreation and parks means something different to practically every person, and carries unwanted baggage of being regarded as trivial, even laughable, and less worthy than more “important” things, we wanted to explore what single term could encompass all its comprehensive benefits.
Eleanor Warmack, CEO of the Florida Recreation and Park Association, declares, “If our industry was a corporation, we would have rebranded ourselves 20 times by now. This profession has evolved—we cannot keep using terminology from 100 years ago to limit what the public thinks of our value, nor to allow our profession to be defined by three words.”
In the book The Blue Zones of Happiness, author Dan Buettner cites research from 141 countries to distill what contributes most to life satisfaction all over the world, and offers practical lessons to making happiness a personal lifestyle.
It’s fairly easy to be happy in any particular moment, of course. The challenge is to sustain an ongoing pursuit of what he calls the three P’s—purpose, pleasure, and pride—the universal keys to life fulfillment, regardless of culture or personality. And while personal discipline can go only so far, Buettner advocates “for strategies that make changes to our surroundings…that constantly nudge us into doing the right things so we don’t have to remember them on our own.”
Our governments, communities, and workplaces; our social networks, homes, and finances; and even our inner lives can be “happier by design,” he asserts. Each of his designing blueprints for happiness enumerates specific action steps for advancing our personal and collective purpose, pleasure, and pride.
In the book’s foreword, Ed Diener summarizes, “We now know that happiness is an essential part of functioning well, and that it gives a boost in well-being not only to individuals, but also to those around them, their communities, and their societies. Rather than being a luxury to be pursued only after we take care of the more important things in life, happiness is beneficial to everything else we desire: It aids our health and helps us live longer; it aids our social functioning and makes us better citizens; it helps us perform better at work; and it builds up our resilience, which enables us to bounce back after setbacks or when bad events occur in our lives. The happier we are, the better we are for our friends and family, our workplaces, our communities, and our society as a whole.”
Doesn’t this passage sound like what we strive for in providing recreation and park services?
Now back to the rebranding term for recreation and parks.
Our creative thought exercise was tough. We identified what we wanted the new phrase to embody. We noted that some park and recreation agencies are transitioning to alternate terms, like the Community Enrichment Department in St. Petersburg, Florida. We tried out new phrases. We even enlisted ChatGPT to invent a new word, which came up with such disastrous results as “recrarks,” “culturisure,” “leisureplex,” and “communivital.” Our discussion was quite stimulating, but so far, we’ve failed to invent anything that conveys so much so concisely.
But—doesn’t the above description of happiness come so very close? There might be a case for it. After all, its pursuit is singled out as an important tenet in one of our nation’s founding documents. And as everyone knows, it’s one of the inalienable rights of “We the People!”
What do you think? All comments and suggestions are welcome!
