I seldom fly so the delays at our nation's airports this week have not bothered me, but it has been amusing to listen to the gloom and doom reported by the media about the delays and how the sequester has brought our nation's air travel to a crisis. As I understand it, 10 percent of the air traffic controllers are furloughed each day which represents around 1,000 people. As a retired union worker I don't like lay-offs for anyone because they hurt the average worker and his or her family, and I really don't like it when such lay-offs are used for political purposes. These are people that are being hurt, and they don't deserve to be punished because our nation's leaders are incapable of leading.
Both sides accuse the other of being responsible for the air travel problems, and for once both sides are right. Republicans and Democrats are both responsible. Congress and the White House are both responsible. The air travel problems are the result of a complete leadership failure on the part of both Republicans and Democrats and Congress and the White House. But, I would also place this problem on the back of the American people because we voted these people into office, and we continue to vote such people into office even though they demonstrate time and again they are incapable of leading. We have people sitting in Congress for years who have never demonstrated one ounce of leadership ability, and yet they continue to be re-elected. President Obama's first term should have demonstrated that everything his primary opponents said about him was correct. He is not a leader, but he was re-elected, and he continues to stumble through one crisis after another. As was once said, a nation deserves the government it gets, so while we can certainly blame our national leaders we also need to take a good look in the mirror to see who is ultimately responsible for the people who sits in those positions.
This air traffic problem is a manufactured crisis designed to make Congress look bad. First, we had the White House tours eliminated due to the sequester. How childish was that? Then it was announced that military fly-overs would be eliminated from large public events because of the sequester. Who cares? Why should the public pay for that anyway? If the organizers of these events want military fly-overs let them pay for them. But, by impacting air traffic the White House found a way to inflict pain on a lot of people as well as on the airlines and airports. As this post is being written, Congress is working on a plan that would allow money to be channeled from other funds to keep the air traffic controllers on their post, but the White House has already claimed this is only a temporary fix and doesn't resolve the budget crisis our nation faces.
In 1981 President Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers who refused to end their strike and return to work. It wasn't 1,000 people being furloughed one day a week; about 10,000 people lost their jobs in one day because they refused to work. Within a day or two salaried supervisors and military air traffic controllers manned the control towers and air traffic returned to near normal. What was the difference between then and now? Leadership. Our nation had a president that was not afraid to take a stand and make a decision without wasting time blaming other people for his problems. Was he criticised for his actions? Absolutely, but to President Reason such criticism was a small price to pay compared to the price the nation was paying over the air traffic controller strike. There were also no more illegal public servant strikes during his term of office because people knew they would not be tolerated.
Yesterday, a person made an interesting comment after the George Bush library opened. Despite all the criticism of President Bush's presidency, some of it deserved, one thing could be said about him. He never blamed other people for his problems. He did not spend time looking for a scapegoat to blame. He was the President of the United States and he took responsibility for the decisions he made, and he was not afraid to make a decision.
As the owner of a small business, you must demonstrate leadership if you want your team to follow you. If you want to inspire confidence in your leadership then you must lead and not waste time looking for others to blame for your problems. You've got to walk through the door first if you want others to follow you. I once worked for a boss who always talked about what "he" did when things went well, and when things didn't go well he would talk about what "we" did. That is how a boss talks and acts. Don't be that guy. Be a leader, not a boss. If you are supposed to be the leader, then lead, and if you can't lead then step aside and let someone who can have that position. Your company will do much better if you'll do that.
So would our country.
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