THE QUESTION
The new Republican House: Right to undo the past?
In taking control of the House this week, Republicans have committed themselves to investigating and repealing all of the major initiatives taken by the Democratic president and Congress over the past two years. How much should the new leaders of any organization focus on undoing the past as opposed to charting a more affirmative course for the future?
Posted by Steve Pearlstein and Raju Narisetti on January 4, 2011 10:38 AM
FROM THE PANEL
Correcting the course
Now the elected officers are pursuing their respective visions, which in several cases result in attempts to reverse some decisions by previous leaders. That is the nature and the beauty of our constitutional system...
Posted by Col. Charles D. Allen, on January 5, 2011 11:09 AM
In the blame game, no one wins
Those who want to redo 2008 to 2010 will see the decisions that contributed to the fragility of the economy and that have locked the country into two intractable wars had their origins well before this time frame...
Posted by Katherine Tyler Scott, on January 5, 2011 10:57 AM
House Reps: Don't throw the baby out with the bath water....
A leader does not erase the past. A leader will build off the past to forward his or her agenda. Repealing President Obama's health-care bill will not magically bring back the health-care debate of 2008...
Posted by Coro Fellows, on January 4, 2011 11:52 AM
Prudent leadership is still MIA
At best we can look forward to another year of endless debate and limited progress. It's a bad case of déjà vu that doesn't seem to be getting better...
Posted by Alaina Love, on January 4, 2011 11:44 AM
Confronting our human fallacies
It often seems that, on an innate level, humans are ill equipped to organize effectively, whether it be in the private, public or not-for-profit sectors. Our technological capabilities to build and organize networks efficiently over the Internet have far outstripped our social capacities to...
Posted by Sally Blount, on January 4, 2011 11:38 AM
It all depends on your goal
Republican leaders seem focused principally on winning the 2012 presidential and congressional elections. At first I expect them to follow the oppositional course. But as the date of those elections approaches...
Posted by Howard Gardner, on January 4, 2011 11:31 AM
The death of old ways
Effective leaders of change focus on the future without describing the past as wrong. It is almost always unproductive to...
Posted by Carol Kinsey Goman, on January 4, 2011 11:27 AM
Making good on a promise
Republican candidates almost universally promised to repeal the Obama health-care bill during the course of last year's campaign, and that is a promise they must keep...
Posted by Slade Gorton, on January 4, 2011 11:22 AM
Solutions not sound bites
Governance is hard work. It involves putting the needs of others ahead of your own. For leaders, that often means turning down their own egos in an effort to work with other, even bigger, egos...
Posted by John Baldoni, on January 4, 2011 11:13 AM
