Absence of Leadership

27 January 2026

https://poems.culturing.net/2026/01/absence-of-leadership/

The leader has no clothes. How painful,
when his predecessor was finely adorned.
He made it look easy. Now no reasons
are offered for bad decisions, only platitudes,
the meaningless gestures towards conformity,
which slowly but surely suck the life
out of what was a beating heart. It was vibrant,
and how we took for granted that life
would continue as it was, free from stupid decisions,
the pointless interventions that upend lives
for the sake of a shallow ego. We were
just fine, in fact, and the absence of leadership
is often not the worst thing. Now we are driven
by the spectre of "because I say so,"
the hollow dreams of an empty man. Who
will save us? Who will bring back good sense
before it's too late?

--

A good leader lets people do what they do,
he does not interfere, he does not see himself
as the source of success...he makes moves
to remove obstacles. How then do so many rise
who make numbers go up, without any humanity?

--

He failed to explain or to even attempt to explain.
He said, "what got you here won't get you there," without saying just where "there" is,
then diverted to talk about football and how rebuilding has led to success in that arena.
But why did we need to rebuild? He could give no reasons. I can only assume
it's because he felt like it, firing two senior leaders with families
just so we could be like Indiana. Amazing! He brought in
some yes men, and I have a feeling that more are on the way.
I will never comply with such brazen stupidity, and I am insulted
to even share space with it, lacking all decency and basic sense.
What on earth was he thinking? I hope that our numbers go down,
because otherwise life is a madhouse, run by idiots who nevertheless
somehow take home the prize.