Note: This post and its video were originally posted in 2021 but the video (embedded above) was censored by Vimeo in 2025 because Vimeo said that I as an American citizen and an American triple-doctorate physician could not be permitted to talk about American politicians and American healthcare-medical policy. As such, the video has now been recovered and reposted in its original form above with updated commentary below. Vimeo cannot be trusted with your videos; hopefully we can continue to trust in Substack, but I have my doubts.
This video was recorded while we were still under the plandemic regime in Spain, one year following my bicycling accident that left me with 4 fractures and a temporarily paralyzed arm…but more on that later when I start talking about my experience with CRPS—complex regional pain syndrome.
Bad leadership is characterized by confusion, lack of direction, and despair, which is exactly what we have in the United States and globally right now.
Edited and reformatted article follows
Without education in Leadership, people cannot enact Leadership and cannot critique Leadership to protect themselves and their communities: this explains a huge part of why our national (and global) leadership is one massive chaotic failure after another.
Without education in Leadership, people cannot enact Leadership.
Without education in Leadership, people cannot critique Leadership.
Without education in Leadership, people cannot protect themselves and their communities from bad leadership.
Without education in Leadership, people cannot demand better leadership.
This explains a huge part of why our national (and global) leadership is one massive chaotic failure after another.
Each of the numbered statements below (from 2021) has now been reviewed and edited in 2025, each followed by an example of the problem and an example of the possible solutions.
1. The topic of leadership is notably absent from public dialogue
Example: You’ll notice that most of our public/media conversation on our political leaders never touches the topic of actual leadership principles or standards; instead, the conversations focus on personality quirks, and who they are married to, and what their health problems are, etc.
Solutions: We need to have clear criteria for leadership so that when we need to critique our leaders, we can do so objectively and effectively.
2. We all need to be aware of essential concepts in leadership
Example: Basically all we do is bitch and moan about personalities, but the general public lacks the vocabulary to critique the leadership performance itself; generally, the conversation is limited to liking it or not liking it.
Solutions: We need to gain competence in the vocabulary of leadership so that we can enact and enforce legitimate standards of leadership.
3. We all need to have the ability to discuss and articulate the topic of leadership
Example: Most American presidents have been horrible leaders. And we see the same problem now in the UK and the European Union. Most of our elected and unelected leaders are buffoons and puppets.
Solutions: We need to have better vocabulary and clearer understandings of leadership as I discuss below.
4. Training in leadership is notably absent from all/formal/graduate education whereas it should be included throughout.
Example: Outside of military/police training, the topic of leadership is notoriously ignored in education.
Solutions: Given that all professional activities require leadership skills, whether managing coworkers or clients, we all need to have some basic training in leadership abilities. I’ve noticed that this is especially true and especially absent in medical training because doctors need to have the ability to lead their patients but also to lead teams of other doctors and trainees.
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5. Leadership requires the participation (feedback, input) and enrollment/agreement of the people being "led”—as the leadership icon John Maxwell stated, “If you think you’re leading, but no one is following, then you’re just taking a walk.“
Example: Most people don’t know how to acquire the engagement of other people, and therefore leadership-without-engagement thereafter is impossible
Solutions: For leaders to function as leaders, they have to first get the engagement and enrollment of the people who are participating. This requires establishing a mission and a vision that is accepted and endorsed, and ready to be enacted by the people being led.
6. Different types of leadership are appropriate for different situations (eg, political vs military vs employer-employee vs owner-manager vs parent-child vs teacher-student) but all leadership has at least four common characteristics
Example: Most dysfunctional leaders do not adapt themselves to the audience or the situation. You can see this in President Trump, who isolates himself from the entire world and from most Americans, including his own base of supporters who he has recently called “stupid.”
Solutions: Leaders have to have social awareness and interpersonal skills in order to lead other people.
7. Lack of leadership always has consequences: error, injury, death(s) or simply wasted time and effort
Example: You’ll notice that under Trump‘s presidencies the country makes essentially zero progress and culturally and financially is often going backwards.
Solutions: Bad leadership forces us to waste time as a human society and if we’re ever going to move forward, we need good leaders with clear missions, visions, strategies and tactics.
8. All good leadership has defined common characteristics
Defined specific goal(s), clearly communicated, along with the supporting strategies and tactics: The goal must be defined (after input and agreement) and the strategies and tactics specified. Undefined specific goals are never accomplished (eg, Trump‘s slogan to “make America great again” is one of the most meaningless political jingoes in the history of humanity); therefore, for a group to achieve any complex or worthwhile goal, that goal must be defined, then subdivided, and then each facet has to be addressed with a specific strategy supported by implemented tactics.
Goals (organizational targets) are defined, then subdivided into components (jobs); then, each subcomponent is addressed with a specific strategy (teams) which is then implemented with tactics (skills).
Enrollment of participants: When the goal has been determined, the leader must then communicate the goal and enroll the participants to gain their full participation. This may be simple or may require some great deal of education in order to convey the importance of the goal and the means to achieve it.
Welfare/maintenance of participants: Good leadership protects the welfare of the participants/implementers. Napoleon Bonaparte famously said, “An army marches on its stomach.” Any leader who doesn’t look out for his/her participants isn’t leading them but rather simply using them, as if they were tools or implements. This is not a successful strategy for achieving the goal because eventually people will get sick, injured, burnt out, bored or exhausted, and when the troops leave, then the war cannot be won. Enthusiastic and incentivized participants are the driving force behind the implementation of worthy goals, strategies and tactics.
Success: Good leadership is generally successful in achieving the goal; failure to achieve the goal(s) is firstly accepted and secondly incorporated into a revised plan until success is achieved.
9. The prevailing power structures want followers and "managers of predetermined goals" —not leaders and coleaders— and they want to keep people ignorant about the criteria and implementation of leadership
Problems: Because most people are ignorant about the implementation and evaluation of leadership, they are mute and helpless and ineffective when confronted with incompetent/manipulative leadership; when people cannot articulate their discontent, they cannot seek agreement from others as necessary to effect public/social change; this leads to the persistence of bad leadership. When people cannot articulate and clarify their discontent, they tend to distrust it or ignore it and allow themselves to be distracted by other trivia; this also leads to the persistence of bad leadership. Thus, by various mechanisms, ignorance about leadership leads to the perpetuation of bad leadership, of which we appreciate two types.
Solutions: You can also note the converse of this: a population (of troops, citizens, workers) knowledgeable about leadership will hold the leaders to higher standards of performance and/or eliminate the incompetent/manipulative bad leaders. As such, any true leader who is more committed to the success of the group than to maintenance of his/her position would therefore seek to train his/her subordinates in leadership in order to create a culture of competent leadership and high-performance.
Because most people are ignorant about the implementation and evaluation of leadership, they are mute and helpless and ineffective when confronted with incompetent/manipulative leadership; when people cannot articulate their discontent, they cannot seek agreement from others as necessary to effect public/social change; this leads to the persistence of bad leadership. When people cannot articulate and clarify their discontent, they tend to distrust it or ignore it and allow themselves to be distracted by other trivia; this also leads to the persistence of bad leadership.
10. "Bad leadership" has two types: 1) incompetence, and 2) manipulation
a) "Honest incompetence" occurs when someone lacks experience, knowledge, talent; these people are / should be open to correction and eager to learn. Honestly incompetent people will remove themselves from positions they cannot handle.
b) "Manipulators" will not remove themselves from the failures they refuse to acknowledge; manipulative incompetence usually implies self-deception and lack of insight/intelligence, eg, Dunning-Kruger.
11. Anytime you ask for clarity and do not receive clarity 1) you are being lied to, and/or 2) you are being manipulated. As such, asking clear and reasonable questions is a very specific and effective tool for differentiating the two types of bad leaders. (Note: this also applies to bad bosses, bad employees, bad contractors, bad friends, etc). Asking a clear and reasonable question should elicit a clear and reasonable answer; anything less is a problem, of which two categories exist: 1) Unknowing: an unclear answer could represent incompetence/unknowing, in which case the honest person might search for an answer and/or acknowledge that they don’t know the answer and don’t have the information, after which they will seek the skills/information needed, 2) Evasion and manipulation: we see the latter of these two options every hour of every day in today’s national and global politics.
Example: You’ll notice that President Trump and scumbag Anthony Fauci have always been consistently evasive when asked for clear answers. Barack Obama was guilty of the same because he promised that “Americans deserve to know what they are eating” but then he caved in like a patsy to the chemical and pesticide industry, who are poisoning American food.
Solutions: Citizens everywhere need to have some form of forcing the realization of political promises. Quite easily, national and international laws should be amended to include that all political promises have to be kept otherwise the politician can be penalized or outed.
12. You can only recognize manipulation if you study and can thereafter identify the techniques; 1) gaslighting: changing the fabric of reality to make other people think they are going crazy, 2) shapeshifting: Karpman drama triangle
Example: Most people don’t know the psychological techniques that are being used against them. Trapped in ignorance of how to define and fight against psychological manipulation, citizens are helpless against being manipulated.
Solutions: I’ve provided several discussions on gaslighting, the Dunning-Kruger syndrome, and identification of and resistance to gaslighting – see my previous articles and videos linked below.
13. Clear questions deserve clear answers; anything less than clarity is evasion and manipulation. Period. Anything less than clarity is evasion and manipulation.
Example: You’ll notice in the video above that at one point in the review I was actually stunned by Anthony Fauci‘s clear and public use of psychological manipulation and gaslighting.
Solutions: The only way to stop politicians from getting away with psychological manipulation and deceit is to have clear criteria and then hold them accountable to criteria of honesty and integrity.
14. Good leadership requires the establishment of goals that are reasonable, clearly defined, achievable, worthwhile. This perspective/perspectivism requires honest and unfiltered inquiry with peers, experts, implementers, and the affected population.
Example: America’s Republican administrations of Harding and Coolidge said they wanted to see, “a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot“ which obviously meant that they wanted Americans to not simply have basic survival and stability, but also advancement and time and money for advancing their lives, financially and also recreatively. President Kennedy was likewise clear that he was dedicated to seeing the nation “put a man on the moon” which was a very clear, unifying and motivating goal (whether or not it was actually achieved).
Solutions: If we’re ever going to escape political babble, then we need to demand from our leaders that they clarify exactly how they plan to achieve their stated goals.
15. If the goal is not clear and the tactics are undefined, then the leader has already failed.
Example: “Make America great again” is an example of playing to people’s fantasies because any racist or slave owner can easily imagine their own version of what “greatness” would feel like for them in America.
Solutions: Good leadership defines the vision, mission, goal, strategies, and tactics. Good leadership defines how the people and systems will be physically/ socially/ financially/ spiritually/ emotionally supported during the mission.
