LEADERSHIP: TRANSCENDING POLITICAL INTRANSIGENCE

posted by Michael Chihak

Are good leaders made or born?

In Arizona, if it’s the former, there’s now a way they can be made. If it’s the latter, that same way purports to make them better.

It’s called the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership. Its centerpiece program, a civic leadership academy, holds its first graduation on Friday, when it will turn two dozen Arizonans back to their communities with fresh perspective on the state’s top political and civic issues.

They also take with them what they learned from public policy experts and others -- the traits and tools of leadership.

Participants spent ten two-day sessions together in Phoenix, hearing from experts on the state’s fiscal system and budget, the economy, education, water, immigration and border issues and a half-dozen other key topics.

It was all focused on fulfilling the leadership center’s mission to ensure that Arizona’s future leaders “have the commitment, knowledge and skills to work together to carry out creative, long-term solutions to pressing problems."

The key phrase in that statement may well be “to work together.” For in this day of political divisiveness when politicians don’t bother even paying lip service to the notion of bipartisanship, getting people to work together on the issues will clearly be the heaviest lift.

Graduates of the academy were admitted on, among other things, the condition that they step up and seek a position of leadership in the community, in civic and/or political life.

The key measure of the program's success could well be how well its graduates do at bringing together disparate political and civic factions for focus on Arizona's crucial issues.