This title reminds of the song of my youth, “Where have all the flowers gone - long time passing . . .” 

My thoughts today are inspired from a recent Larry King Live segment on the Bush Years. Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary under President Bush commented, “The fact that made America so great was that the private sector is and should be bigger than the government. . . Business and labor have got to get together and figure out how to thrive. The government plays a moderate role, but if it is the preemptive role America’s on the wrong track.”

The moral obligation for business and government to act with integrity, responsibility, and in good faith has withered away and led us straight into the current economic and environmental crisis of today. How did this happen? Who is to blame?

Rather than look at how and whom, let’s examine the root of the problem from inside a Leadership Garden.

The primary shoot of a plant is called a leader from which everything blossoms. Yet, the condition of the soil in which a plant grows determines the quality of the plant’s output.

The same holds true for human leadership. Simply stated, to lead is to guide and direct; a leader is a person or thing that guides and directs; and leadership is the action you take in leading your life.

There are two conditions that affect the growth of the individual and collective Leadership Garden of America:

A survival condition is rooted deep in our brain. Activated by fear, our primal instinct to fight, flee, or freeze overrides our ability to access a situation as it is, rather than how it is imagined. In times of imminent physical danger, this is a very good thing. Prolonged activation of this primal instinct imagined or real erodes our personal power and ability to cultivate reason and weed human behaviors like gossip, blame, and victimization.

In a thriving condition, we consciously engage our heart, mind, and spirit to align with a unique purpose and aim to make the difference we desire.

To thrive in life you must understand and nurture the inventive quality of your unstoppable expression of leadership, thus making you a U.N.I.Q.U.E. leader.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Am I surviving or thriving?

• Am I leading my life or following along?

• Am I abdicating my responsibility to lead the life I desire? 

   

Remember – a survival or thriving condition determines how your Leadership Garden grows. You do have total say in how your life goes by choosing to be responsible for your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Yet, you are still part of the collective Leadership Garden and, as such, are impacted by the conditions that surround you. 

When the words: lead, leader, and leadership are assigned strictly to a job, title, or position they lead to the fear-mongering, greed, hate, and corruption that flourishes today. The result - collectively we have lost sight of the heart and soul of what makes individual and collective leadership great. The industrial age of leadership in which most of us grew up no longer serves the individual or our country.

We have entered a new season of the information age. There is no better time than 2009 to seed and nurture your individual, family, and community Leadership Garden. 

I hope you will join me when we launch, in early spring, the Leadership Garden Legacy Registry and Grants. The intent is to inform, empower, and engage 11 million Leadership Gardens by 11/11/11 to make the world a thriving place.