Someone commented today on a post I wrote last August regarding leadership in sacrifice and U.S. Healthcare Reform, Leadership in Sacrifice: U.S. Health Care Reform's Looming Lesson, which I just re-read and realized, much to my chagrin, that it's still true. Check it out (here's the beginning of it):
(From August, 2009) The now-stalled U.S. Health Care reform effort shows that our elected officials lack the will and skill to exercise leadership in sacrifice.
To enact reform, politicians—people-pleasers and self-preservationists by trade, would, ironically, have to sacrifice themselves politically, and at the same time ask American voters to make sacrifices of their own. Supporting it means offending multiple constituencies and interests that fund elections, while simultaneously looking to the masses to give up the devil they know. Elected officials have done the math on that loser, which is what’s stalling progress and promoting endless media rehash.
This status quo will be the status quo until / unless someone in Washington is willing to take the hit, and demonstrate excellence in sacrifice…<<more>>
David Peck
Executive Coach and President
Leadership Unleashed
