Michael Loftin pictured in his days as the editorial page editor of the Chattanooga Times.When Dr. Charles Smith, Gov. Ned Ray McWherter’s education commissioner, spoke to outstanding seniors in Hamilton County schools at an honors banquet in 1987, he linked his remarks on education to a secondary topic important not only for education but other issues: leadership.
There is no denying the value of good leadership for business and labor, but also for organizations that serve the needs of a community’s families and children. Without it, a society’s effectiveness and stability can be compromised.
Ideally, leadership continuity is engendered by the recruitment of promising young men and women who can be mentored on how best to fashion responses to their community’s needs. Our community has been well-served by Leadership Chattanooga’s decades-long record of leadership training. That will continue when the next class of 44 “students” begins a 10-month run in August.
Some who learn the value of sound leadership might some day provide it more broadly through election to state or national political offices. The corrosive non-leadership in Washington reminds us that victims of partisan discord are often those whose grim circumstances are referenced mostly by partisan “talking points.”
The apparent collapse of the Senate’s effort this week to replace Obamacare is merely the latest example of partisan leadership sabotaged by ideology.