A student of golf only has to turn to the Golf Channel to watch others’ putts up close. Broadcasters give viewers a better understanding of the game and a player’s strategy (and history) of emerging from sand, weeds or a slump.
With 57+ channels and nothing on, now might be the time for a Leadership Channel. There is a lot of material available to assemble a daily line up that gives viewers of all ages a little bit of insight into how leaders (fictional and real) emerged from sand traps and slumps to make a real difference. Who hasn’t heard the desperate plea for ethical, thoughtful leadership in the private and public sectors? With the nation’s return to prosperity considered by many to be a long, tough road, emerging leaders need all the help they can get.
My Leadership Channel would not have reality-style programming and would steer clear of self-promoter style leaders and motivators like Donald Trump and others who might use our airwaves to support their speaking careers.
Our generations are blessed with preserved television programming, movies and recorded historical events. They hold great value and insight into the very best Americans have to offer. As a collective national asset, they deserve discussion and analysis through a leadership filter. noted authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner define five primary leadership practices of modeling the way, enabling others to act, encouraging the heart, challenging the process and inspiring a shared vision.
Some ideas I have for content:
- NASA was built and excelled before our eyes and well reported on television. Yet today, we have lost sight of how, for generations, it functioned to inspire a shared vision. Science, risk, patriotism!
- Friday Night Lights (TV) has enjoyed excellent reviews, yet a small pool of followers on TV during its four-year run. This show oozes leadership practices required of adults in a small town and motivated high school football players. There is the best plot on TV today to discuss at the family dinner table – ethics, relationships and what it takes to be a member of a team.
- Re-runs of professional women’s tennis from the 70s and early 80s, where efforts of Billie Jean King, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova consistently projected “yes we can” to the young women of the baby boom.
- A season-by-season analysis of Alexis Carrington Colby (played by Joan Collins) of Dynasty to inaugurate original programming… sort of a “How Not to Lead.”
Finally, I can envision that programming remains fresh through a highly collaborative process where viewers are encouraged to submit content suggestions and the programmers actually act on them. Online evaluations replace Nielsen ratings. Leadership training is not a secret, expensive luxury afforded to the privileged or chosen few. Nor does it need to be dry and humorless. What would you add to the line-up?
That’s right – the family dinner table discussions. You’ve made me think about the fact that I’m running our of time for these. I better make the most of those I have left!
Okay Cynthia…. you got my blood pumping with this one! This channel is WAY past due. Talk about too many young Americans heads being buried in the “sand, weeds or a slump”. Be it the media, the schools, parenting today. Not sure what it is. Nobody seems accountable, or wants to be. Everyone has to be politically correct and doesn’t dare to take a risk or say what they think. How can we truly lead under those circumstances? If we think it is bad now I am worried about what the future will hold. I’m done.