Be Careful What You Sew

I couldn't resist. I am aware of the millions of opinions floating out there in cyberspace in response to Scott Brown's election as a Republican Senator from Massachusetts. My computer is underlining that phrase "Republican Senator from Massachusetts" - even spellcheck doesn't believe it to be possible. Yet, I can't pass up the chance to learn from what happened. Many people, brighter than I, will debate the causes of the upset for the next year, or at least until the mid-term elections. But it seems to me to boil down to one looming leadership lesson - be careful what you sew.

Barack Obama ran on the platform of "hope" and "change." He articulated few clear policy points and steered away from setting an agenda of leadership. He did not debate the issues - he attacked the status quo. He taught the country that all it needed was something different than what it had and life would again be better. Obama did not waste his time splitting hairs over some government policies that might be working well while others needed reform. He stayed on message. "Yes We Can." We can change (everything). He taught the people that what is, is never good enough. Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager in 2004, claims the flaw the democrats faced in this race was their "failure to understand how anti-establishment the country has become."

This anti-establishment sentiment coupled with a soft campaign preaching hope and change instead of policy and agenda is what allows democrats in Massachusetts to vote in a Republican. There is no more loyalty. What can you be loyal to? If the parties aren't going to put their stakes in the ground and own up to what their core beliefs dictate, than what are we the voters left to ponder? The only question for us is do we like where we are right now? In these tough times the answer will continue to be "no." The only option then is to seek change. So we vote for whoever is different. Then we can hope. The grass is always greener.

Leaders have to respond to this crisis. Make no mistake it is a crisis. Without a sense of loyalty we float from one thing to the next without taking root anywhere. We never truly connect. We drift. The rising numbers of independent voters bears out this phenomenon. Drifting is not the human condition. We seek connection. But connection is hard. It means we have to understand one another. It means we have to be clear about what we stand for. It means there will be differences between us and we have to respect that -- we have to live with that.

Loyalty does not mean that we do not want change. It is about where we seek the change. Sometimes we can seek change from within. We can repair the party that we are a part of. We can change our actions, our policies, our values to better align with today's envirnment. It's harder than just hoping for better with the outsider. But as Ryan Bingham would say "There's nothing cheap about loyalty."