political dialog

Dan Mulhern’s motto is to lead with your best self, which he does yet again in his “After the Assassination” post. He writes a message that will inspire you to lead with your best self.  This is my favorite line.

“You can praise when the culture is decrying. You can point out troublesome facts when the rest of the team is in denial. You can laugh at yourself when everyone’s being a little too self-serious. Or, you can just offer a humble opinion to get the bus rolling (it’s a lot easier to steer a moving bus.)”

I particularly like the point about laughing. Saturday’s shooting was quite sobering. It reignited my commitment to my “How to Restore Sanity to Our Political Communication” book. It also reignited my commitment to laugh.

I hope this sad event will get us – not just pointing fingers at the fringes and at how leaders misuse language and imagery – but at how we all can talk more civilly. How we can all focus on what we want more than what we don’t want. How we all can be a bit more authentic. How we all can shave violent terms from our language and be responsible for the imagery our words create. How we all can keep our hearts open, and our voices more compelling than those who would divide us for their own purposes.

We need to address the influences around us, but not to the point that we forget the influence we all have. Do we add to the violence or the civility? Dan reminds us which to do.