Several years ago I read Jim Collins book "Good to Great" and became a proponent of the results he and the research team gathered from their data. They identified a few traits common in companies whose results were transformed from good to great in a given period of time. Their conclusions rattled my cage in 2005, and they still inform my personal concept of leadership today.
Their findings will even go with me to the polls Tuesday morning as I vote for Curtis Bostic in the runoff election for a Republican candidate in the First Congressional District. Collins research and book re-shaped my thinking about the kind of leaders that make "good to great" transitions possible, and that the first order of business in corporate America is not what we do, but who is on board to do it. His book left me asking "who is on my bus?", and challenging others to make our intimate circle our most significant decision.
Idealist me believes that America can move from "good to great" when the right people are on the bus, and when those people have the make up of what Collins calls the "Level 5 Leader". In my personal assessment, Curtis Bostic is that Level 5 leader, and is the right person to stand for the First Congressional District in our run-away government.
The Level 5 leader is humble, leads by example, doesn't really care who gets the credit, is totally committed to the assignment, and will do what is necessary to get the job done. Curtis Bostic has exemplified all of these traits because this type of leadership is, in another analysis, the servant model so evident in his personal faith. It is this type of servant leadership that is missing in so many levels of government these days, people who will do what is right simply because it is right.
From another angle, Collins ideal affirms that the "what" of business, or government for that matter, actually flows out of the "who". Well, the tasks of government are clearly defined by the Constitution of the United States, and Mr. Bostic has deep respect for the original meaning of the Constitution. If these tasks and assignments have been perverted beyond their orgininal intent, it is because we have elected people to the office with little regard for the document or its application today. It just goes on, if the Congress is off course, it's not because the tasks delegated to it by the Constituion are wrong. It is because we keep sending the wrong people there to do the work. Senator Tim Scott was certainly one of the few in Congress who grasped the tasks and faithfully fulfilled the assignment of First Congressional District voters. Curtis Bostic is best positioned to take that position to new vistas of faithful service.
So, Curtis Bostic is on my bus for this runoff election. He's a servant leader without skeletons in his closet, a proven record of faithful service on the Charleston County Council, and a deep commitment to this country, the people of our district, and even more, to God.
God bless America!