Leadership Inside the Trump Administration

The art or process of influencing, guiding and inspiring a group of people to work together toward a shared or common goal is called "leadership." To further the matter, leadership includes (4) core qualities, including integrity, communication, empathy and courage.

While closely looking at the aforementioned definition of leadership and its (4) core qualities, do you believe the current Trump Administration has operated in the best interest of the United States as it relates to the War against Iran? I mean, pay close attention to daily reports from top sources like CNN and Fox News and then listen to the day-to-day rhetoric from the White House and tell me what you honestly believe. 

As we know, the President and his chosen leaders are struggling to get the United States from underneath this war. However, at the same time we continue to hear that we are dominating the war and Iran continues to seemingly beg us for a ceasefire and resolution, despite the fact that we are 6+ months into a supposedly guaranteed 3-4 week war!

Now, do me a favor and hit that play button and watch or listen to my thoughts on the Trump Administration as it relates to leadership and the (4) core qualities of leadership. Once you have done that, do your very own assessment and tell us your thoughts!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey, hey, what's up out there again, everybody? I'm your host, Greg Mack of the You Better Plan on the Podcast. You can catch me live by way of YouTube at 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time every Tuesday. Or go to www.youbetterplan on the podcast.budsprout.com and catch me on one of your favorite sites there. Also hit that subscribe button. I really appreciate it. Now, with that said, let's go ahead on and move into the topic of today. Because this topic involves planning. And my podcast is centered around planning. That's why it's called You Better Plan On It, because you must have a plan for everything you do every day of the week. Whether you believe it or not, it is impossible, and I've said it before, to go about your day and go about your way without having an effective daily plan. You know, and whether you planned it for that day or a month down the road or a year down the road or six months down the road or whatever, you have to have an effective daily plan. But in this episode, we're going to talk about leadership, you know, which is a big word. I'm a retired United States Marine, 22 years, retired Master Sergeant. In my entire career, we did nothing in the Marine Corps. I don't know of a unit, a company, a battalion, a regiment, a division that didn't have planning involved in every single phase of what they did on a daily basis. Even if it came down to a physical fitness test or just physical fitness on a daily basis. There was a plan put in play. So I'm telling you, you know, when you go home at night and you got to get up the next day, you know, whether it be your kids or yourself, there's got to be a plan involved in what you plan to do for that next day. For instance, you know, you have a big presentation to take care of. So what are you going to do about that presentation? You can't just say, I'm just going to do a presentation. There has to be a plan in place. You know, so whether you see it or not, you have to plan it. So let me give you the definition of leadership. It says, the art or process of influencing, guiding, and inspiring a group of people to work together toward a shared goal. Now, that is a big definition for a leader. Can you galvanize others to work towards a shared goal or a common goal? Can you do that? Now, there are core qualities of effective leadership. There's four particular ones. Number one is integrity. Obviously, if you don't have integrity, it's going to be seen by so many people. And it typically is going to be seen pretty quickly as your integrity when it comes down to your leadership standards and how you do business. People will watch you like a hawk, especially when you're new to a job or a position or a command or whatever. I'm telling you, people watch you closely. Hey, so-and-so is brand new. We need to check him or her out to see, you know, what kind of leader are they? You know, and do they have integrity or are they just one of those people who just try to do this, this, and this? Do we know their history? They try to find out things about you. Uh, number two is communication. Can you effectively communicate what you need to have done? And can you take effective communications in return to make sure you're understood? See, a lot of people know how to communicate and get things out there, but they don't know how to reciprocate the situation. They just are demanding or so authoritative or they want to dictate everything, you know. So it's bad communications. And you gotta have two-way communication skills to be able to be a good leader. Because, first of all, if you're gonna give orders, you need to have at some point been able to receive them. And if you're going to be communicating, sometimes you're gonna get that constructive criticism. Question is, can you handle it? You know, are you just that person that it's just my way all the time, and that's the way it's gonna be? Now, the third one is empathy. You know, people are emotional, they have feelings. You know, when you in the workplace or at home, how do you treat people? Are you just the type of person who just decides, well, you know, this is how I operate, this is my effective daily plan. Do as I say do, and that's it, period. I don't care how you feel, I don't care what's going on in your family, you must have empathy. You know, there are many people out there that are leaders that lack empathy, and they know it, you know, and I hope they're working on it. Because if you work on it, you're gonna get better at it if you take the opportunity to try. And trust me, people will be talking about you, whispers will be centered around you, and and and it'll come back full circle to you, believe me. And the last one is courage. You know, do you have courage to make those difficult decisions? Because I mean things come down the pipe and boom, right away. Oh my god, what is my plan? Your plan changed. So that effective daily plan you changed, you know, allows you to have some kind of flexibility. But if you just went with that typical, this is what I do every day, all day, no flexibility, and then it hits you in the face, now you're stuck. Because now you got to figure out, oh my God, I need to make this decision, and I'm not sure exactly what to do. And in turn, if someone else makes a decision that's going to have an effect on you, what type of courage do you have to go to that person and say, hey, you know, what you did has a big effect on me and my folks, or whatever the case may be. So let's let's talk about something right now. I'm not a big politics guy. I don't run around parading about politics, but I'm just gonna tell you straight up for a fact. If you take a look at what we're going, what's going on today here in the United States under the administration wonder right now, I'm gonna be honest with you. I believe that there's questionable leadership. Very questionable leadership. And the reason why I say this is because I've had a chance to watch and view things pretty closely, you know, and I don't get into a lot of TV in terms of the politics, but you know, I started watching just because of we're at war. And when we have a situation that involves war, that is something because I'm a retired Marine and I've been in wartime situations on multiple occasions, I kind of look and see what we're doing. And and, you know, I take issue with decisions that have been made in terms of getting into this war and how we got into this war. You know, everyone's heard it if you paid attention. You know, the Israelis in the United States got together and made the decision that we need to prevent uh Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. That's understandable. That's been going on for decades, trying to ensure that that does not happen. The JPOA that the Obama administration put in, it seemed to be pretty effective for years now in terms of having inspections and going in and checking on things. And there's never really been anything put out there that says that it has not been working until this administration said, you know what, they were on the verge of getting a weapon. Now, what was supposed to be a three to four-week war has turned into six plus months worth of war. And, you know, I have friends in the Marine Corps and other branches of service that's already been over there and back, and you know what we have conversations, and there's a lot of confusion. Now, I'm not targeting any specific area other than one leader that is our president. And I believe that there's some people that's been put into place that are not experienced enough to handle the situations that's going on. Now, I'm not gonna get into specific names, but I'm just gonna tell you there are some positions that involve going to war where you are removing expert people, generals, big names, know what they're doing, been doing it for year after year after year, and then they're being replaced by people that you put into play that do what you say do, period. That's just being, you know, authoritarian. You know, you lack the ability to have both sides of it where you can persuade people as well. You you you know, your leadership is just one way, and that's the way it is. And because you have people push back against you who know how things go and have been doing this quite a while and have been on five, six, seven, eight, nine deployments. They've been around this stuff, they know how it works. They've been removed from their positions, and then you're putting in people that's gonna do exactly what you want them to do. And then when they don't, they're removed. And it just continues to happen. It has just been a mess to me. You know, I I've looked at what we're doing, you know. We want to do regime change, and and you know, we want to remove all the materials that they have. We're doing it, oh, but it's too far, it's been beaten down with bombings, and it's too far down to go get. And we're gonna have an agreement. Um, we have an agreement, and then we find out there was no agreement. And I've never heard tell of a ceasefire that's a guaranteed ceasefire for 60 or 90 days, whatever it is, and we're still firing at each other or at different locations. That just blows my mind. How is that a legitimate ceasefire that was put into place? Now, as far as the leadership goes, and then you get out on national TV and you say, well, we have an agreement, or they want, they badly want to make an agreement with us. We have bombed them, you know, we have diminished their military, we have bombed them, they have no way of getting back at us. And then here we are six months later, unlike Venezuela, we're still at war. And it's going to continue. In the Straits of Hamous that we said that we're going to put up a blockade and we're going to do this and we're going to do that. You know, that came from our leaders. I mean, I was sitting there looking at it. The number of high-profile leaders that were terminated from their positions. And then other people, okay, you want to bring in new blood? Fine. How experienced are they when you bring them in? What training have they had? You know, have they been in these combat level situations? Are the people you put in place very strong leaders that know exactly what to do? Can they communicate? You know, you know, so I'm telling you, if you look at the integrity of what's been going on, this to me, there's been a lot of misleading in terms of telling the American people exactly what's going on. We keep getting changes and stories almost on a daily basis. And then CNN and Fox News, they take a beating from our leadership on fake reporting. This fake news stuff that when you look at it, how fake could it be when we all can read and we all can see it? The Iranians are not scared of us. I mean, we we got rid of the top dogs, and then new folks come in and we're gonna force regime change. Have you seen it yet? Has it even come close to changing? Uh we have decimated their military so they have no way of fighting back, or very little way. And here we are, six months later, what's going on? On the communication side of it, have you communicated to the American people exactly what's going on in totality? Or has there been some hitting agendas that's been going on? And I'm telling you, there's been some stuff hidden from the American people. And those of us that have been in the military, especially if you've been on active duty and on these deployments, you know how things go. You know. And I am not trying to knock anyone of our leadership. I pray for them, I want them to do great. But we're in a mess right now. We're in a buy and the ability to communicate things. When you get up on Capitol Hill and you're testifying, and you are so, you know, you just so hotheaded that it turns into a yelling session because you're not answering questions. It shouldn't even come to that. It should be a process of, hey, this is what we're doing, this is how it's going, and this is why it's going this way. Simple. But it turns into yelling and screaming and trying to defend what the decision making has been. Now we have a joint chairman chief of staff saying that we need to try to find a way out. Well, we should have been trying to find that way out months ago. Basically, the communications piece was Israelis in the United States made the decision that we're going to start bombing. Well, you had allies. Did you communicate anything to them before this thing started? Did we sit down with our congressional side of the house and say, hey, this is how we're going to do business? That's misleading. When you make it look like that's what you did, and but then it turns out bombing starts, and then we find out on the news that we've been bombing. You know? And then we talk about empathy. These military personnel, all of a sudden ramped up, thousands of them in the country. Unexpected deployment for most, if not all. You know, did you think about you know what they're going through in their families? But if you look at the folks that's sitting up there in the big house, none of their families are out there, they're not talking about it. They're busy making money, busy doing their jobs. They don't have to worry about it, they don't have to live that combat life. So, where's the empathy in taking a look at our soldiers and putting them in harm's way? Yeah, we lost folks. That's the nature of war. But did we lose folks because there's been some decision making that's been very questionable? I would say yes. And you may get upset with me or take this in a way that he doesn't know what he's talking about. You know, I'm not digging deep in this, I'm just telling you, when you look at things from a leadership perspective, you know, the integrity has been questionable almost on a daily basis because the story keeps changing. Does it not? If you believe that he, the president, and our leadership has been straight up with us since day one and it's been that way every day, I'm just gonna tell you, you, you, you, you just might be a little tone-deaf. Have they communicated things in the way that they need to be communicated to the American people and to the public? Why are things changing so dramatically? And we keep hearing the same song and dance, and then you get up there to testify, and now you're asking for a billion dollars of this and a billion dollars of that because we need to get more munitions. And then you've learned, you hear that it's been leaked, as you say, that our munitions are running low in certain areas, and then you say you're gonna prosecute people, but then you turn around and get on national television and say, some munitions are tighter, a lot tighter than others. Well, you just told them the same exact thing. So are you gonna prosecute yourself? It's amazing. And now you got so much more military personnel over there on this deployment, and unexpectedly, you know, they ramped up. That's what we do. I mean, I was I've been down that road, that's what we do. But, you know, they seem to be confused as well, based on members that I've talked to, you know. And the last thing I'm gonna touch on is courage. Do you have the courage and conviction to just be honest with the American people? Come on now. We're at war. If you're wrong about something, say you're wrong. And I gotta say though, Trump's my dude, man. He he cracks me up. But one of the things he is, is he does not believe, in my opinion, that he is ever wrong. I've never been around anyone. Well, not been around him personally, but just in terms of watching him on national TV and seeing how he's operated pretty much as long as I can remember, he does not believe that he's ever wrong about anything. And he will not admit when he's wrong about things. And I'm just telling you, people, there's a lot that has been wrong right now. And it's been a whole lot of misleading. I mean, these what do we call them core qualities of effective leadership, integrity, communications, empathy, and courage? If you don't believe it's questionable, just watch the news and take a listen at the same thing being said every day. We have a great economy, but people are struggling. So much is being thrown at us. It is just interesting, you know. What is our plan to get out of from under this war situation that we're in? It has gotten messy, and it has become chaotic and confusing on what we're doing. Other than sending more people to the region. Uh, we're gonna bomb, and then all of a sudden we're not gonna bomb, and they're gonna wish that they didn't do this, and we're gonna bomb again, and then we don't bomb, and we're gonna put the bombing on hold, or we're gonna just annihilate the country. So much stuff has been said to us. I I'm just at a point now where I, you know, I don't know what to believe. But I'm gonna keep watching, and I want you to do the same. So I want you to think about this. If you are in a leadership position, think about what the word leadership means to you. Look up the definition of leadership. Google it, check it out, and then take it and apply it to yourself, and then take the core qualities of effective leadership and apply those to yourselves and see where you stand. And if it's questionable for anything from the definition to the core qualities of effective leadership, then you need to go back and take a look at who you are and what you're doing in your line of work at whatever you're doing in school or however the situation is. I just want you to prepare yourselves better and better understand that if you are a leader, then you are someone who has to have integrity. You have to be able to communicate. You must have empathy and you must have courage. And if you have those things, especially if they're well balanced, then you're going to be an effective leader in any given situation. And if you have those core qualities and you understand the principles of leadership, then obviously when you when things change, you can operate on the fly because you have a plan. And everything we do in the military, there is an all there is a primary, an alternate, and a secondary plan. Because we know things shift. So for me to you, it's about leadership. And if you're gonna be an effective leader, you have to be able to plan. And plan effectively, not just make a decision and then you don't know how to get out of this. Because right now, I mean, the president can tell you himself. He he may not. He really, right now, does not understand how to get out from under this war. And those people that he placed in charge of these different departments, they have been trying to figure it out from day one. And then when they get up there to testify, get on Capitol Hill, you can see the frustration, you can hear it, and then you say you're asking for the whole world, and they want to know why you need all this. You walked us into something that was improperly sanctioned and done accordingly. It wasn't thoroughly and effectively planned. Now, there's some effectiveness in the planning, obviously, but it was not an effective enough plan to when you needed to shift, you know exactly what to do. Because we removed powerful leaders that understood what they were doing. And you put people in that's just gonna say yes to whatever you say do. That's just the nature of the beast. I love our president because he's our president. So, you know, I got love for him. I'm praying for him, but I'm telling you, everything has got to be his way. And the folks he put in charge, he wants it their way as well. And when it doesn't go their way, they remove people. Sometimes you have to swallow the pipe and go, hey, this person knows exactly what they're doing. Let's let's go with this. But, you know, sometimes, you know, you deal with people who just do things, they're on a one-way street. And it's not gonna be, nobody else is gonna get in the way of that. They are authoritative, period. They don't have dual leadership styles, they have one way of doing things, and when you have it that way, the planning becomes one-sided. So if you're out there again, think about your leadership style. Think about those effective core qualities of leadership, and transfer yourself over to what you need to be to be a better leader each and every day. Thanks again for watching and tuning in. I hope you got a bit from this message. I didn't get too deep and too crazy with it. You know, you know, if it bothered you, then so be it. If it resonates with you, then so be it. Cool, fine. Throw some feedback out there. I don't mind. You know, leadership is leadership. And in my opinion, right now, with the situation we're in, we're failing. And we're failing pretty miserably here at home, regardless to the with regards to the economy and then this war. Yeah, we're dominating militarily because we can boom, boom, boom, but it's costing us dearly because of leadership. Take care of yourselves out there. Stay safe. Again, catch me while we have YouTube live at 12 p.m. every Tuesday, Pacific Standard Time, or go to www.youbetterplan on the podcast.budsprout.com and catch me at one of your favorite sites. I thank you again for your time. God bless you. Always remember a plan that succeeds is a plan that can fulfill one's needs. God bless you, simplify, and hurrah.