{"id":2927,"date":"2020-06-02T14:51:41","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T20:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/?p=2927"},"modified":"2020-06-02T15:03:39","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T21:03:39","slug":"passive-leaders-are-not-leaders-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2020\/06\/passive-leaders-are-not-leaders-at-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Passive leaders are not leaders at all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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I spent a bit of time today listening to Ms. Sara Houranpay<\/a> describe the destruction of her family\u2019s restaurant in Portland, Oregon.\u00a0 Her family immigrated to the United States thirty years ago and in a matter of minutes their restaurant was destroyed.\u00a0 It is located in a racially and ethnically diverse neighborhood, and the restaurant has a reputation for welcoming people from every walk of life.<\/p>\n

There were no police there to protect them.\u00a0 One patrol car passed by but did not respond to their attempt to get attention.\u00a0 Ms. Houranpay<\/a> asked one of the looters who walked by, \u201cWhat are you doing to our city?\u201d to which the young man responded, \u201cI\u2019m not even from here.\u00a0 I drove up from California.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the tragic moment that George Floyd was brutally murdered until now, I have been appalled by the lack of civic leadership across the nation.\u00a0 With a few notable exceptions \u2013 like Art Acevedo, police chief of Houston, Texas \u2013 on the municipal, state, and national level, there have been serious elements of effective leadership missing.\u00a0 In some cases, what has been missing is empathy.\u00a0 In other cases, decisiveness, strength and clarity have been missing.\u00a0 In the place of both a dispiriting passivity has set in, instead.<\/p>\n

Americans of every perspective might have briefly tolerated this behavior, assuming that those in positions of authority know something that we don\u2019t know.\u00a0 But it has quickly become clear that there is no piece of information hidden from sight that explains the pattern we see emerging, other than the failing leaders themselves.<\/p>\n