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Citizens who Make A Difference: Patriot Ginny Rapini – NorCal Tea Party Patriots Founder This Tea Party is Making a Visible Difference – Find Out How

Why is the Tea Party under attack? If these groups are such a minority of “racist terrorists” (add all the other labels) why all the attacks? The real truth is that the Tea Party, a grassroots group of concerned citizens, made up from all aspects of Americana, IS making a big impact. LIA is not a member of the Tea Party, but we’d like to look at a few of these modern day revolutionaries, beginning with Ginny Rapini, Co-Founder of NorCal Tea Party Patriots in California.

Ginny and her husband, Del, started NorCal after attending an April 15th rally in Sacramento. They decided to start a Tea Party Patriots group in Colfax. It only took a month to realize that the vision was much bigger, so they changed the name and in July 2009, NorCal took off. They have an incredible 6,000 NorCal members in their database.

Although Ginny and her husband Del were the initial leaders, Ginny said “it didn’t take them long to see that we needed to put a core of leaders around us.” NorCal is organized as a non-profit with a 7-member board of directors. Each member has a specific responsibility. Ginny is chairman, and as such oversees all other board members, handles merchandise, is involved in fundraising, radio hosts for their weekly radio show, handles communication, media contact, etc. Husband Del is the logistics coordinator, rents equipment or finds donated equipment for events, and handles fundraising. They then have an Event Production Coordinator for staging and AV. This person also oversees their facebook and website. There is a Treasurer, Volunteer Coordinator, Website and videographer, and a Community Outreach/Education Coordinator.

NorCal’s mission statement aligns the group with Tea Party Patriots national organization, and they adhere to advancing the founding organization’s mission to hold lawmakers fiscally accountable, stand for strict compliance to our National Constitution to limit government and support the free market.

NorCal Tea Party Patriots have a legislative committee that gives the Board information, and Ginny herself gathers information for their “Action Calls”. These Action Calls target specific items or legislation that they feel need attention from citizens. The Action Call is sent out to their mailing list and individuals are encouraged to make personal phone calls, fax or make a personal visit. A list of legislators with phone numbers and addresses are given in the email to pave the way for action. They feel emails is the least effective way to “lobby” their position. Some of their recent Action Calls dealt with ACA6(requiring a “Legislative Analyst” to determine whether a citizen petition for amendment would be considered), AB723 (Energy:Public Goods Charge) and AB1303 (increases the PUC take from public utilities for R&D). With the help of their activism, these bills were all defeated. Currently, a big effort is in effect to stop SB48 (www.stopsb48.com) where they need 500,000 signatures to qualify the referendum. Their goal is nearly reached, but they need 100,000 more before the cut-off date of October 10th. Action Calls go out as issues come up, and NorCal is making a difference by affecting their government which should be “by the people, of the people and for the people.”

Every liberty group can be effective and make a big difference. Why do they do it? They are “afraid for their country” and say “when they look into the eyes of their kids and grandkids” they keep going. Ginny Rapini adds “it is an undeniable calling from God who enables me and helps me to see that this isn’t about ME, this is about my country and my God who has called me for ‘such a time as this’.” The Tea Party movement is a patriot movement reminiscent of the Sons of Liberty. It is a peace loving, liberty loving, thoughtful and industrious group of Americans that love their country, their family and have faith and hope in a free humanity. In the 1700‘s The Sons of Liberty were ridiculed and initially thought of as a radical movement. A little known fact is that The Sons of Liberty – the folks who threw the tea over the side of the ships in Boston, preserved the ships and did not damage them. They even swept the decks clean after they dumped the tea. The Tea Party today leaves venues cleaner than when they found them. Similarity?

If you would like to talk with Ginny, please email info@libertyinamerica.org and I will send her your request.

Finger Lakes T.E.A. Party Photos

“Moment of “Clarity” by Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.

In a response to my piece entitled, “Taxeaters”, a reader who favored progressive income taxation posed this question back to me: why shouldn’t the top 50% of income earners pay 96% of the taxes?

My answer: for the same reason that they shouldn’t have to pick up 96% of the state’s collective bar tab. All knowledge builds upon what you know.

That evening, I pondered his question some more and was inspired while enjoying a pub meal that Michelle Obama would ban if she could. And here is the problem with progressive income tax theory played out a fictional place called Madison Wild Wings.

Let’s say there are 200 tables at MWW and the bill for each is $100 for a total of $20,000. The manager announces a better, fairer way to pay the bill – progressive, he calls it. Sounds like progress, so the customers go along, and besides they are watching the Badgers on the big screens and not paying much attention.

He sorts the tables by income into the 100 lower-half tables and the 100 upper-half tables. We’ll call the upper-half “taxpayers” and the lower-half “taxeaters”, just because it drives liberals nuts when I do that.

He then informs the upper 50% – the taxpayers – that their share of the total MWW bill for the night is 96%, or $19,200. There are 100 tables, so they each must pay $192 for their $100 of food. The taxeaters share is $800 or $8 per table. The servers get 20% tips from each table, so some make $38.40 and some making $1.60, which creates MWW’s first-ever income gap.

Is this fair? According to liberals, the United States government, and all but handful of states that have no income tax, the answer is a resounding “yes!” Is it smart? We will find out on Day 2 of the progressive payment plan at Madison Wild Wings.

Day 2: The crowd is a little different tonight; can you guess how? Right, there are more taxeaters and fewer taxpayers. And the taxeaters order the best of everything now that they know someone else is paying. The total bill surges to $30,000.

Taxpayers’ share is $28,880 – $280 per table – while the taxeaters pay just $12 per table for $150 of appetizers, entrées, dessert, and blender drinks. The servers on the taxpayer side got $56 tips per table, while the taxeaters got $2.40, so all the best servers go work the taxpayer side.

Are the taxeaters grateful to the taxpayers? No – in fact, they are furious that their bill went up 50% from $8 to $12! Plus their service was horrible, because their servers suck at it. They accuse the manager of ripping off poor people, and then call him racist and homophobe for good measure, even though he is gay and Hispanic. The bad servers form a union – the I Hate Rich People Union.

A University professor with a Ph.D. gets a grant to study the problem. He asks the taxeaters if they have been screwed by rich people; they say yes, they have been screwed by rich people; he concludes they have been screwed by rich people. That wins him a Nobel Prize, and President Obama makes him a Czar of some new agency that will tell MWW how to make wings from now on. Dr. Duh funnels federal grants to his old University and they name a building after him. The sandal people are pleased.

The MWW manager doesn’t want to lose most of his customers, so he agrees to tax the rich even more, increasing their share to 98%. This is quite popular with the taxeaters. He also donates to President Obama’s campaign and gets a waiver from ObamaCare.

Day 3: Even more taxeaters show up, some bussed up from Illinois, just like their parents did in the 70’s, the last time there were free wings in Wisconsin. Some taxpayers quit working and join the taxeaters side, some go elsewhere; there are only 50 tables filled in the upper half. And the bill comes to $40,000 this time. Ben Bernanke reports this increase a 33% rise in GDP. Ron Paul laughs at him.

98% means the taxpayers have to pay $39,200 and since there are only 50 tables, each table’s share shoots up to $784. The taxeaters total share is $800, back to just $8 per table. Except now the servers on the taxeater side go on strike because their tips dropped back down from $2.40 to $1.60 per table. Ben Bernanke adjusts GDP downward and Paul Krugman blames the strike on greedy rich people.

Then Bernanke remembers that you can’t spend the same dollar twice, so $39,200 of something else won’t get bought somewhere else, and he has to adjust GDP all the way back to zero. This confuses Joe Biden, so he just calls it 12,000 new stimulus jobs and asks directions to that custard place.

By now everybody at MWW is angry. Taxeaters are complaining, taxpayers are leaving, the servers are on strike, the kitchen help is going back to Mexico, managers are quarrelling, profits are down, Ben Bernanke is testy, the cost for taxpayers to eat at MWW are more than double any other wing joint in town, and Joe Biden is still there and won’t shut up.

Note to students: this is what we mean by the term “hostile business climate”. At Madison Wild Wings it is bad – one of the 10 worst in the nation. New taxpaying customers peek inside and run away to spend their evening somewhere more hospitable.

Meanwhile over at the Texas, Tennessee, and Florida Dutch Treat Wing Emporium, the place is packed with taxpayers who fled from MWW, along with the best servers who can earn more without the union. The TTFDTWE is profitable, the patrons are happy, the servers are making good money, and taxpayers and taxeaters are back comingled at their tables, laughing and getting along just fine. Prices are low and dropping, quality is high and improving, and the menu is expanding with more choices every day. Capitalists and libertarians are not surprised, because everyone is acting in their own self interest and of their own free will.

Note to students: this is what will happen when Wisconsin passes Right To Work legislation. That is how you fix a hostile business climate.

Back to our story…the progressives are shocked and appalled by TTFDTWE. Someone on WPR sniffs back tears and calls it the Walmart of NASCAR Waffle Houses, and the next caller claims she is David Koch and says the whole state of Arizona is a bleepin’ MubarakDictatorBushHitler. The sandal people whisper-talk their glee at her clever gotcha, saying, “right on” and “solid” and “word”. They don’t understand the meaning of “word”, but it sounds really, really black.

Day 4: Now the taxeaters demand free high speed rail to take them to MWW and back and health insurance. The taxpayer side at MWW starts drinking tea and fighting back. The old manager abruptly retires to Spain after taking a lavish Cancun vacation and buying some train cars. The till is empty when the new manager shows up for work, and his bookkeeper tells him the budget is in the red by $3.3 billion.

He meets the taxpayers, who politely remind him who pays his salary and then give him a folded note with a message for the taxeaters. The new manager walks over to the taxeaters, and opens the note and calmly says, “The people who pay my salary have asked me to tell you to buy your own damn wings.”

The taxeaters go berserk, walk off their jobs, take over the state Capitol, hide in Illinois… Well, you know the rest of the story; we have been living it for real in Wisconsin for three ugly weeks now. It is fitting that the cradle of the progressive movement is also the cemetery in which it will be buried, and someone needs to pull the plug on this ridiculous life-support stalemate of a protest the unionists have inflicted.

The progressive income tax is not simply bad economic policy, it is inherently immoral. If you only earn 10 times more than me, why should you pay 30 times more in taxes? Why? Because you have it and I want it? That is the morality of the brute, the rapist, the looter, and yes, the taxeater. The 10% tithe in religion is a voluntary flat-rate revenue source, and personally, I would choose God over socialists when it comes to moral imperatives and questions of infallibility.

For the past century, socialist progressives have wrapped their turd of an ethos with the plight of the poor, the infirmed, the children, the disenfranchised, and even the planet; hoping their faux-compassionate veneer would distract us from the stench.

Like most other things, they are wrong. And so is their progressive income tax.

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”

CPAC 2011

CPAC, The Conservative Political Action Conference, by the American Conservative Union, took place on February 10-12, 2011. There were record crowds (more than 11,000), and what surprised me was the huge number of students, or people below the age of 20. Take a look at the chart below provided by CPAC with regards to their registrants; with regard to those who took the Straw Poll:

Pretty amazing right? These are smart, beautiful, lively young people who are conservatives. It gave me hope.

The Straw Poll voted the most conservative, libertarian candidate into the #1 spot, Ron Paul; and the most liberal, republican candidate, Mitt Romney, into the #2 spot – I’m thinking intellectuals and students vs. the “he’s so charming and handsome” crowd….

One part of CPAC that I didn’t expect is that it is essentially a stumping ground for potential government candidates. Every conservative candidate (pretty much, we even saw “Sarah Palin” even though she was only an actress look alike) wanted to have his moment in the light to persuade each of us that he or she understands “our pain” and has what it takes to govern.

I was standing under “The TeaParty.Net” sign, with our friends from that organization, an umbrella non-profit that is offering a place for all liberty groups to share their schedules, ideals and websites. Apparently, this made for a good place for political stumpers to try for a photo op. Among others, Senator John Thune, from South Dakota, walked up to me, (apparently he had just finished his speech to the masses and was on his way to a book signing) shook my hand and asked me how I was doing. I could immediately see that he was a politician (very nice suit and haircut, nice looking, and the John Boehner tan) but I didn’t know who he was – sorry – I’m not up on every senator in every state – I hail from Pennsylvania. After expressing pleasantries and obviously not getting anywhere with me, he walked on. I immediately realized a lost opportunity (I could have at least asked him if he and Mr. Boehner share a tanning booth) when 2 college students ran up to me and asked in a tremendously excited voice, “Was that John Thune??” and when I said, “yes” they asked, “Do you think he would talk with us?!?” I assured them he probably would and pointed in his direction. To his credit, Mr. Thune took a photo with them and they were quite excited. My point is, why? Why are we so excited about meeting a “public servant”. How have we so lost our perspective that some of us drool over meeting a congressman, senator or President? Thomas Jefferson, our third President, would not allow any of his governmental accomplishments on his tombstone, citing instead his founding of the University of Virginia. Today, we pay thousands of dollars to retired Presidents for the privilege of hearing their opinions in speeches across the country.

CPAC was a sensory overload with great speeches, my favorite being that of Herman Cain. He has a Ronald Reagan twinkle in his eye and isn’t afraid of saying what he means. He said that we can be called racist because we don’t agree with a President who is black. Then he said “they call me racist because I don’t agree with a President who is black” (Mr. Cain is black) “Go Figure”. He’s a highly intelligent, and “only” a successful businessman, however, and hasn’t the star quality of some of the candidates, like Donald Trump, who probably isn’t as successful a businessman as Mr. Cain (go figure). I was nearly run over by the Trump entourage, a group of about 20 men in suits shouting “Make a hole!” “Move aside” as Mr. Trump made his way through the hotel.

As with all events, this one came to an exhaustive end. We all packed up and went back to our humble abodes. As one ponders the success of such a “right” sided event, one might ruminate upon a quote from one of our brightest and best founding fathers, John Adams who said (contrary to the “middle” mantra of the press) that “In politics the middle way is none at all.” John Adams.

Fall 2010 Photos

The Liberty Bus and Beth visit Beaver County, Pittsburgh, Watkins Glen, and do a whistle stop tour in New York ending in Jamestown.
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What’s Next for the Tea Party?

In the United States, liberty and tea party groups ideologically motivated American citizens across the country to vote conservatively. Their motivation was the November 2010 elections. Since I had the opportunity to travel with Liberty In America (www.libertyinamerica.org) this summer and meet many of these groups, I wanted to know what their motivation would be for 2011 and beyond. Would these groups still meet in large numbers and carry on their mission? What’s next?

I surveyed several groups and interviewed group leaders. After meeting and listening to many people involved in the current liberty movement, one of the biggest conclusions I’ve come to is that the media treats these groups as, at worst, slightly deranged “anti-government, angry, anti-establishment” (The New York Times, January 14, 2010, Kate Zernike – and other Tea Party articles), racists (we’ve all heard that one) or at best, a nuisance that “will disappear” (Harry Reid, Fox News, January 10, 2011). When the tragic shooting occurred in Arizona, despite the fact that the shooter was found to be a disturbed individual, the “tea-party rhetoric” was blamed immediately. Obviously, there is a serious attempt to paint an abstract depicting thousands of Americans as idle idiots who have nothing better to do than belong to an “angry, anti-government” group and shout hate rhetoric.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is a deep, gut-level sense among this diverse group of people who understand that only by grace we live in a land of opportunities – and they are grateful. Their ancestors believed in the “American Dream” and took great risks, sacrifice and hard work to obtain it. They believed that the original Constitution of the United States was foundational, and could not be changed without their consent. This is why tea parties, liberty groups, think-tanks, will not “go away”.

When asked what their individual motivation is for giving up their time to educate and involve themselves in the governing of their city, county, state and country; the response that covers most answers is “our freedoms are being taken away”. Others state that “we’re being ignored”. They are also worried about their children, their grandchildren – “I see my grandchildren being harnessed with so much debt that wasn’t their fault”. Families with and without veterans appreciate their sacrifice and do not want to see that sacrifice made null. Some talk about our forefathers, Sam and John Adams, George Washington.

So what is next now that these groups have made an impact on the 2010 elections? “Core principles” says Steven (Sky) King of one of the original tea party efforts in Texas – “Constitutional – and the return to balance of powers”. He says that “The Constitution is the ruling document for the Congress, not the people.

Agendas include being more involved in local government. The McKean County Tea Party in Pennsylvania is organizing an effort to attend, en masse, school board meetings, city council meetings, township and county meetings. But they won’t stop there. Their original agenda of harnessing a rampaging federal government and reducing spending both there and in state – is still part of their plan. T.A.R.A. (True Americans Restoring America) in New York are educating their members by having Constitution Classes, Economics, States Rights, County Law, New York State Constitution, and more-and they aren’t the only group doing this. Liberty In America (www.libertyinamerica.org) is offering free webinars by experts across the country to get more private citizens educated in education, government spending, welfare, the constitution, states rights. In fact the 10th, 16th and 17th Amendments (look them up – states rights and taxation, http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html) are three topics that are being talked about at almost every liberty group I’ve met with or spoken to. Oh, and yes, let’s not forget that to a man, or woman, they will hold their representatives “accountable” to be fiscally sound and reduce their footprint.

There isn’t enough space to encompass the passion of the patriotic American Citizen. However, listening to standard media bias, no matter what source, is shameful. With the internet available, and groups across the country that one can attend (and come to no harm), everyone should be seeing for themselves “what all the fuss is about”. One great resource is Join The Tea Party (www.jointheteaparty.us)- to find your local tea party group. And they aren’t just tea parties…..one of my favorites is Liberty On The Rocks (www.libertyontherocks.com), “Tavern Politics in the Founding Fathers’ Tradition”. If you like to meet at a local pub, sip a beer, hear a speaker and exchange ideas, this is the liberty group for you.

The “tea party” is simply a name for a number of average and not-so-average non-partisan Americans who are tired of being patted on the head and told to go play. We should be thankful that this group is here to stay, and perhaps even get off the couch long enough to examine it ourselves.

Charismatic Leadership – Risky?

This article was sent to us by Gene and Charlotte Preston:

Charismatic Leadership
Unethical Charismatic Leader — Uses power only for personal gain or impact; promotes own personal vision; censures critical or opposing views; demands that own decisions be accepted without question; one-way communication; insensitive to followers’ needs; relies on convenient external moral standards to satisfy self-interests.
Ethical Charismatic Leader — Uses power to serve others; aligns vision with followers’ needs and aspirations; considers and learns from criticism; stimulates followers to think independently and to question the leader’s view; uses open, two-way communication; coaches, develops, and supports followers; shares recognition with others; relies on internal moral standards to satisfy organizational and societal interests.

Articles about Charismatic leadership
1. Assumptions
Charm and grace are all that is needed to create followers.
Self-belief is a fundamental need of leaders.
People follow others that they personally admire.

Style
The Charismatic Leader gathers followers through dint of personality and charm, rather than any form of external power or authority.

The searchlight of attention:

It is interesting to watch a Charismatic Leader ‘working the room’ as they move from person to person. They pay much attention to the person they are talking to at any one moment, making that person feel like they are, for that time, the most important person in the world.
Charismatic Leaders pay a great deal of attention in scanning and reading their environment, and are good at picking up the moods and concerns of both individuals and larger audiences. They then will hone their actions and words to suit the situation.

Pulling all of the strings:

Charismatic Leaders use a wide range of methods to manage their image and, if they are not naturally charismatic, may practice assiduously at developing their skills. They may engender trust through visible self-sacrifice and taking personal risks in the name of their beliefs. They will show great confidence in their followers. They are very persuasive and make very effective use of body language as well as verbal language.
Deliberate charisma is played out in a theatrical sense, where the leader is ‘playing to the house’ to create a desired effect. They also make effective use of storytelling, including the use of symbolism and metaphor.
Many politicians use a charismatic style, as they need to gather a large number of followers. If you want to increase your charisma, studying videos of their speeches and the way they interact with others is a great source of learning. Religious leaders, too, may well use charisma, as do cult leaders. 

Leading the team:

Charismatic Leaders who are building a group, whether it is a political party, a cult or a business team, will often focus strongly on making the group very clear and distinct, separating it from other groups. They will then build the image of the group, in particular in the minds of their followers, as being far superior to all others.
The Charismatic Leader will typically attach themselves firmly to the identity of the group, such that to join the group is to become one with the leader. In doing so, they create an unchallengeable position for themselves.

Alternative views:

The description above is purely based on charisma and takes into account varying moral positions. Other descriptions tend to assume a more benevolent approach.

Conger & Kanungo (1998) describe five behavioral attributes of Charismatic Leaders that indicate a more transformational viewpoint:
Vision and articulation;
Sensitivity to the environment;
Sensitivity to member needs;
Personal risk taking;
Performing unconventional behaviour.
Musser (1987) notes that charismatic leaders seek to instill both commitment to ideological goals and also devotion to themselves. The extent to which either of these two goals is dominant depends on the underlying motivations and needs of the leader.

Discussion
The Charismatic Leader and the Transformational Leader can have many similarities, in that the Transformational Leader may well be charismatic. Their main difference is in their basic focus. Whereas the Transformational Leader has a basic focus of transforming the organization and, quite possibly, their followers, the Charismatic Leader may not want to change anything.
Despite their charm and apparent concern, the Charismatic Leader may well be somewhat more concerned with themselves than anyone else. A typical experience with them is that whilst you are talking with them, it is like being bathed in a warm and pleasant glow, in which they are very convincing. Yet afterwards, ask the sunbeam of their attention is moved elsewhere, you may begin to question what they said (or even whether they said anything of significance at all).

The values of the Charismatic Leader are highly significant. If they are well-intentioned towards others, they can elevate and transform an entire company. If they are selfish and Machiavellian, they can create cults and effectively rape the minds (and potentially the bodies) of the followers.
Their self-belief is so high, they can easily believe that they are infallible, and hence lead their followers into an abyss, even when they have received adequate warning from others. The self-belief can also lead them into psychotic narcissism, where their self-absorption or need for admiration and worship can lead to their followers questioning their leadership.

They may also be intolerant of challengers and their irreplaceability (intentional or otherwise) can mean that there are no successors when they leave.

See also
Bonding principle, Pull, Trust principle
Musser, S.J. (1987). The determination of positive and negative charismatic leadership, Grantham: PA: Messiah College
 
2. Becoming a Charismatic Leader
Posted by John Baldoni on February 20, 2008 6:23 AM
With the rise of Barack Obama’s campaign, the inevitable discussion of charisma arises. Kate Zernike of The New York Times reported recently on the role charisma has played in presidential politics since Theodore Roosevelt. Obama can certainly stir the hearts and minds of his followers with his rhetoric as well as his driving sense of hope and optimism. And so the question arises for leaders not in the political arena: is charisma necessary? No, but it certainly helps.

Charisma gives the leader the edge he or she needs to give people a reason to believe in their leadership. Charisma itself is the shine on the apple, but not the apple itself. As behavioral scientists have postulated, the shine often comes from what people want to see; it is a reflection of their own selves. The substance comes from the leader. In sales terms, charisma opens the door, but the leader must close the sale.

Here are some suggestions for developing charisma, or at least shining your own apple.
Know yourself. One reason we are drawn to leaders is that they radiate confidence. That confidence emerges from a sense of self. They know they are up to the job and hunger for it. Better yet, and this is where charisma comes in, they make you feel that they can do it. And even better, you can help them do it. “Ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country” is not simply a great piece of rhetoric. It was John F. Kennedy’s call to action to a “new generation” of citizenry.

Practice your public speaking. Leadership is a public act; it means standing up in front of an audience and delivering. Most often, unless you are a corporate titan or politician, you will be speaking in small groups, but regardless of the size of the audience, you must speak with knowledge as well as conviction.

Be humble. This may sound like the antithesis of charisma, but it is not. Leaders who soar on stage but are grounded when speaking or listening one-on-one are those that inspire loyalty. So often in the tales of great men and more especially great women, we hear their followers say, “She made me feel as if I were the most important person in the room.” That’s charisma in reverse; make the other person feel special. That may be the ultimate gift of charisma, the one-to-one connection with individuals.

As desirable as charisma may be, it does have a downside. As Zernike notes, it can morph into “the cult of personality.” If inspiration rests only on aspiration rather than perspiration, it is vaporous.

Ultimately, leaders are judged on results. If the results are judged good, people will be pleased. If the results are poor, people will be turned off, not matter how handsome, beautiful, debonair or inspirational you may seem. Charisma is desirable, but lack of it does not doom a leader to failure.
Have you been able to develop your charisma? Have you been able to succeed despite not having it? Let us know.

John Baldoni is a leadership consultant/coach and speaker as well as the author of six books on the topic.

3. The Ethics of Charismatic Leadership
(Excerpted from The ethics of charismatic leadership by Jane M. Howell and Bruce J. Avolio, Academy of Management Executives, 1992, Vol. 6 No.2; and The Charismatic Leader as Narcissist by Daniel Sankowsky, Organizational Dynamics, Spring 1995, Vol. 23, No. 4)

According to prevailing theories, followers regard the charismatic leader as one or all of the following:

An omnipotent archetype (parent); a leader who will nurture and guide them.
Mystical (in touch with “higher truths”); a leader who knows the way and knows the answers.
Heroic (perhaps derived from past achievements); a leader who can move mountains,
Value-driven (concerned with the collective and able to empower it); a leader who’s pure in spirit.
Today’s environment emphasizes organizational learning and follower empowerment — conditions that promote mutual respect and dialogue. However, even in this environment leaders can, sometimes unwittingly, enact subtle abuses. Generally included in the typical definition of power are the notions of dependency and control: a leader’s ability to determine followers’ behavior stems at least in part from the followers’ dependency on the leader. This, in turn, is based on leaders’ control over the various aspects of organizational life affecting followers or perceived as needed by followers, such as material resources and organizational advancement.

Symbolic status refers to a psychological phenomenon: the tendency for followers to tacitly regard leaders as parent figures, a tendency that becomes pronounced in the presence of charismatic leaders. Even unwitting abuse of this power can significantly undermine the followers’ psychological well-being. Symbolic status has its origins in the concept of transference, which occurs when clients symbolize their therapists as parents.
Various management theorists suggest that transference inheres in the leader-follower relationship as well. This means there is a predisposition for followers to mentally construct their relationship with leaders on child-parent terms. Followers tend to be highly motivated to gain the leader’s personal approval and are highly affected by the leader’s actions and beliefs. The motivation and vulnerability described go beyond the present-based normal reactions to a leader. The power of symbolic status, rooted in unconscious drives, enhances a leader’s potential to fundamentally alter followers’ perceptions, emotions, and thoughts. Thus there are ways that leaders, even those who are otherwise well-intentioned, may abuse their power.
The management function associated with such control is communication. The attendant responsibility is the free exchange of clear and unbiased information and the granting of respect for the followers’ views. The power of symbolic status is particularly susceptible to inadvertent abuse, because so much of what underlies it is tacit. For example, leaders may avoid their basic responsibility to promote professional development in followers, perhaps by denying a fair validation of followers’ views, or denying them access to appropriate information, or failing to provide clear and unbiased information and feedback. Leaders must be responsible for taking the time and effort to assist followers’ development. But more important, they should critically examine their own behaviors, especially in the light of negative signals from followers, investigating rather than blaming.

Charismatic leaders can achieve heroic feats (turn around ailing corporations, revitalize aging bureaucracies, or launch new enterprises) by:
powerfully communicating a compelling vision of the future, passionately believing in their vision, relentlessly promoting their beliefs with boundless energy, propounding creative ideas, inspiring extraordinary performance in followers by (a) expressing confidence in followers’ abilities to achieve high standards, and (b) building followers’ trust, faith, and belief in the leader.

The term charisma is value-neutral: it doesn’t distinguish between good/moral and evil/immoral charismatic leadership. Charisma can lead to blind fanaticism in the service of megalomaniacs and dangerous values, or to heroic self-sacrifice in the service of a beneficial cause. Ethical charismatics develop creative, critical thinking in their followers, provide developmental opportunities, welcome positive and negative feedback, recognize the contributions of others, share information with followers, and have moral standards that emphasize collective interests of the group, organization, or society. The following key behaviors and moral standards further differentiate ethical from unethical charismatic leaders:

Unethical Charismatic Leader — Uses power only for personal gain or impact; promotes own personal vision; censures critical or opposing views; demands that own decisions be accepted without question; one-way communication; insensitive to followers’ needs; relies on convenient external moral standards to satisfy self-interests.

Ethical Charismatic Leader – Uses power to serve others; aligns vision with followers’ needs and aspirations; considers and learns from criticism; stimulates followers to think independently and to question the leader’s view; uses open, two-way communication; coaches, develops, and supports followers; shares recognition with others; relies on internal moral standards to satisfy organizational and societal interests.
The double-edged sword of charismatic leadership is readily seen in the impact on followers. Ethical charismatic leaders convert followers into leaders. By expressing confidence in followers’ abilities to accomplish collective goals and encouraging them to think on their own and question established ways of doing things, they create followers who are more capable of leading themselves. Followers feel independent, confident, powerful, and capable. They eventually take responsibility for their own actions, gain rewards through self-reinforcement and — like their leader — establish a set of internal standards to guide their actions and behavior.

4. Charismatic Leadership: Do You Believe in Magic?
“A full moon blanks out all the stars around it.” Ted Turner (also known as Captain Outrageous) about himself
“I care more about being a leader than being liked, especially when I see someone with ability who isn’t trying his hardest.” Michael Jordan
“A huge portion of what Netscape is worth is Jim Barksdale telling investors it’s going to work; he has this great ability to convey confidence and give comfort.”
“Charisima, to me is almost a phony thing. It’s what those TV evangelists have.” Jim Barksdale

“Charisma is a tricky thing. Jack Kennedy oozed it-but so did Hitler and Charles Manson. Con artists, charlatans, and megalomaniacs can make it their instrument as effectively as the best CEO’s entertainers, and Presidents. Used wisely, it’s a blessing; indulged, it can be a curse. Charismatic visionaries lead people ahead-and sometimes astray.” Fortune, January 15, 1996

Charisma matters more than it used to; when you had command-and-control environments, everyone knew his role and executed his boss’s program. Today, if you’re able to galvanize people into action, all the thinking, the analysis, the strategic prioritizing doesn’t matter at all.” Sears CEO Arthur Martinez.

Whenever problems seem intractable there comes a call for MORE LEADERSHIP. This usually means a call for better leadership and for many it is a call for charismatic leadership, something that we think we know when we see it but is very hard to define. We can’t seem to get enough of movies like Rocky, Patton, or Godfather that center on charismatic leadership; we seem to think that if only we had better leaders, we could solve our problems.
Yet it isn’t that simple. While on the one hand we call for more charismatic leadership, we also have a distrust of charismatic leadership. Charismatic leaders can lead us astray and into disaster (see David Kouresh of the Branch Davidians or Jones of Jonestown).

Does Charisma Matter?
It seems to-sometimes. Charismatic leaders can inspire and create excitement. Yet there are times or situations where it probably doesn’t matter at all. Do you want a banker to have charisma. Some companies do fine without charismatic leaders and some companies do poorly with charismatic leaders. Robert House, a researcher on the topic concluded that “when conditions are uncertain, charismatic bosses spur subordinates to work above and beyond the call of duty.”

What do Charismatic Leaders Do”?
Charismatic people have a remarkable ability to distill complex ideas into simple messages (“I have a dream”); they communicate by using symbols, analogies, metaphors and stories. Anyone can understand them – they relish risk and feel empty without it; they are great optimists
they are rebels who fight convention; they may seem idiosyncratic.

An “Academic” Look at what they do
There appear to be four stages in the development of charismatic leadership
Sensing opportunity and formulating a vision: these leaders seem to sense their constitutents needs as well as see the deficiencies of the existing sitaution and untapped opportunities. The combination of these leads to an idealized vision of the future. These visions at least in organizations seem to fall along one of four major types: an innovative product or service; a contribution to society; a transformation of the organization; or a contribution to the workforce

Articulating the Vision: these leaders seem to have a great sense of strategic vision and a capacity to convey the essence and viability of that to a broad group of people

Building Trust in the Vision: subordinates must desire and support the goals of the leader and this is likely to be accomplished by more than coercion; rather the leader builds trust in the leader and the viaiblilty of the goals; this is likely to be done through personal risk taking, unconventional expertise, and self-sacrifice

Achieving the Vision: these leaders use personal example and role modeling, reliance on unconventional tactics and their use of empowerment practices to demonstrate how the vision can be achieved and how motivation can be sustained

A Trip to the Dark Side: Charisma doesn’t guarantee success
Charismatic leaders are pictured as organizational heroes or “magic” leaders who can orchestrate turnarounds, launch new enterprises, inspire organizational renewal, and obtain extraordinary performance from organizational members. These leaders inspire trust, faith and belief in themselves. Of course none of this is a guarantee that the mission will be correct, ethical, or successful. These leaders can be agents of destruction and can lead to disastrous outcomes. Some even question whether charismatic leadership is good for an organization rather than people being able to lead themselves. By believing in the leader as hero, we may ignore that many of the key solutions to today’s organization are in ourselves and we should not depend on a “hero” to rescue us.

Where do we find these leaders?

Despite a stated need for major transformation and charismatic leadership, a number of organizational practices may make it difficult for charismatic leadership to emerge and for charismatic leaders to be effective. Charismatic leadership can be very risky and in most cases organizations are not willing to take the risk-often for good reason. The cost of following the wrong vision can be worse than having no vision at all.

What has happened to our country?

Where we live, in what the urbanized like to call “fly-over country”, you can hear the most frightening of talk in the local barbershop, drugstore, grocery store and restaurants. Some say that civil war will breakout between those that work for a living and those that live off the government, (e.g., the rest of us). Some say that martial law is in our future. Some say that America is bankrupt and we just don’t know it. Some are openly saying that the President’s days are limited.
Such talk! In my almost 50 years of living never did I think that I would hear rational, hard working, and intelligent people express their fears openly and with such hostility.
The fear is everywhere. It’s palpable.
Fear that we have screwed up as a nation and allowed the political class to become the ruling class. Fear that our children will never have the opportunities that we have had. Fear that every job worth having is being shipped to China. Fear that the federal debt, $106 Trillion and still rising, will one day crater and leave no one untouched save the ruling class. Fear that the Federal Reserve’s unchecked power is at the expense of the middle class. Fear that Congress has become the new unmerciful czars that the Russians threw out of their country…and into ours. Fear that our religious liberties, our privacies, our speech, state’s rights, and our right to bear arms are being stripped away with alarming regularity. Fear that the same politicians that swore an oath of allegiance to the Constitution are the very same people that are shredding our beloved Constitution. Fear that the tax man is coming next year and he’s going to want biblical amounts of recompense. Fear that the greatest health care on earth will become a distant memory. Fear that this county may have inadvertently elected a President-for-Life. Fear!
Every day you can meet people on the street, rational people, educated people, kind people, poor and wealthy people that have bought guns for the first times in their lives.
Oh what a mess we have put ourselves in by wanting the message “Change We Can Believe In” without first knowing the messenger.
Yet, I cannot help to think that the problems were not started by Bush 43 or Bush 41, or by Clinton or Obama, but by Carter, Nixon, LBJ, FDR, and Woodrow Wilson. The parties to this conspiracy to downsize our rights, and to make all dependent upon someone other than God and ourselves, stretch over the decades, not just the past few years.
Research has shown that for every decade of public education the educational system has been dumbed down by another year. What a graduating high school senior must learn today was required of sixth graders a mere sixty years ago. This dumbing down of society has mature adults confused as to which branch of government writes and passes spending bills (the House), why the Speaker of the House can travel to nations hostile to America and act as if she is the Executive Branch (she can’t) and why the Supreme Court can site European case laws to justify their opinions (they can’t…but they do).
In 1924 H.L. Mencken said, “That erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”
America needs to return to its Judea-Christian values of independence, self reliance, charity, duty, and honor. America needs to return to a strict Constitutionalist view that limits the Federal Government’s powers. America needs to teach her children why history and capitalism are so important to the preservation of liberty.
America needs to turn to her past to prevent the worst of her fears from becoming our future.
Randall Turner, MBA
www.MoneyinAmerica.Biz
October 5, 2010

They Don’t Get It

The Congressional Republicans released their “Pledge to America” one week ago, amid great fanfare. Unfortunately, John Boehner and his team have once again proved they don’t get it. Many people commented before the resounding defeats of status quo Republicans in the primaries: “They don’t get it.” After the primaries, some were hopeful that the Republican power elite had noticed that the people want their liberty back, and that the Republicans are supposed to be the defenders of individual liberty. However, it is obvious now: “They STILL don’t get it.”

That Pledge was a pathetic piece of paper-waste.
It did not make any worthwhile commitments to tackle the big entitlement programs.
It is not an accountability document; it makes no reference to eliminating earmarks, and Boehner has publicly refused to commit. It is not aggressive enough to make a difference in our looming fiscal crisis.
And it is not even honest in terms of reducing the royal status of our current Congress, like requiring them all to play by the rules they enforce on us.

The Pledge is an embarrassment for the Republican Party. Months ago, the leaders of the liberty movement, including national tea party leaders, developed the concept of a “Contract FROM America”, a document of accountability and actions that we the people want Congress to tackle and complete. This was a platform for action not from one particular party, but from the governed to the government. An entirely new way of getting platforms for action developed. The Contract From America developers engaged well over a million Americans – anyone who wanted to participate – in a suggestion and voting process that resulted in a platform of 10 actions for real reform.

Why didn’t Boehner and company simply adopt this platform? It was the perfect opportunity for them to initiate a master stroke; at once accepting the priorities of we the people, co-opting a key platform and millions of tea party supporters, and having a meaningful reform agenda that would drive home the message of change. By adopting the Contract From America, they would also be sending a subtle but important message: “We get it.” In other words, it would have acknowledged that the Republicans had dropped the ball on defending liberty during the past decade, and the people had picked it up for them. It would have been an important exercise in humility and recovery. But no.

John Boehner has demonstrated what everyone has feared – not only is his tan the only thing remarkable about his head, he was also born without any testicles.

And the assessment of the Republican power structure is not only obvious but official now: “They will NEVER get it.” Therefore, they must be removed. – Beth Powers

Podcast: Beth on a tear

Find more interviews with Beth, and other experts, on ‘MoneyInAmerica.biz’

Beth is on a tear in this episode. If you think that you’ve heard it all before, you are sadly mistaken. Beth has had her fill, as have I, with those political elites in DC that have taken their case against Arizona, and the rest of us, to the United Nations.