When will our next generation of leaders step up?

By Richard Johnson

Sunday, April 17, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Editor’s note: Things are working out well.

By that I mean my friend, Richard Johnson, who encourages me most mornings to get myself into physical shape, has stepped up and beyond many in his young generation to involve himself in the current presidential nominating process. And he has done it the old-fashioned way: He reads, studies and questions constantly the various platforms and plans the candidates are putting forth.

In short, he is using his brain as much as or probably more than members of his generation do as a whole. Tweets, slogans and sayings only go so far with Richard. He wants facts and responsible argument.

All I have asked him is why he thinks many others in his generation have forsaken the Socratic method in favor of 140-character persuasion.

His view follows. Because it is a responsible voice at a time when reason can escape us, I recommend this first effort to you.

— Brian Greenspun

America is ready for the next generation of young leaders to step up in the home, in business and in the community — to analyze challenges and execute plans that lead to successful outcomes. But looking around, I’m worried that it’s not happening.

When surrounded by my contemporaries at work, I am struck by their lack of initiative and leadership. Young, quality people who can and should be moving into leadership roles are instead meekly holding back, as if they fear embarrassment and failure.

I wonder if that behavior — that hesitancy to take charge because of the risks of coming up short — is the result of how we millennials were raised. Helicopter parents protected us too much. Technology usurped our gumption and allowed us to become passive. When we were younger, we all got a trophy even if we didn’t perform at our full potential, and now entitlement is running rampant. Today as adults who have lived through a recession, many of us hoard money and avoid business risks because we are more afraid of failing than we are hopeful of succeeding.

This failure to be assertive and exercise our critical-thinking skills is playing out in other ways, too. I see my cohorts succumbing to group-think, like sheep in a herd, failing to demonstrate any independent thought and critical reasoning. Too often we take as fact what we see, hear or read on our television and computer screens, without bothering to vet the information and examine its source for its truthfulness. This lack of investigation by my generation frightens me because we make decisions and adopt principles and ideologies based on the word of others, not through our own queries and discernment. In a sense, we stop thinking for ourselves. And when that happens, we are no longer able to lead.

This lack of leadership — among not only the younger generation but our society as a whole — was evident in our recent political caucuses and party conventions. I saw groups of supposedly intelligent, free-thinking people coming together but checking their brains at the door. Inside, they seemed to lose their ability to have civil, open-minded conversations that weighed all the sides of an argument.

Signs of trouble were visible at the outset, with the lack of control, execution and leadership. People seemed confused, lost, unsure, disorganized. Here we were, trying to conduct our small part of a larger process that would ultimately lead to a new president of the United States, and I could only wonder: Where was the leadership when it was most needed?

I was frustrated, too, by how some of my generation were falling for candidates who offered no detailed blueprint as to how to secure the American dream for ourselves and our families. Some were swooning over socialism as a way to improve our country, only betraying how misinformed they were because of untenable financial consequences of executing that political philosophy. Many in my generation were shouting their approval of a candidate because it seemed cool to them to support an underdog, without reading how that candidate’s platform was fanciful and unrealistic.

America needs leaders, leaders who posses the ability to conceive, plan and execute visions to propel the nation forward. These leaders need to come to the forefront now and lead the masses. It’s time for millennials to get real, to study, to think and to execute based on today’s reality. And we need to connect to other generations so we can cement our great nation as the global leader it can and will be.

Brian Greenspun is owner, publisher and editor of the Sun.