Breaking News

Columnists

Trump is no respecter of persons

No doubt Donald Trump knows New York City and is familiar with the Puck building in Manhattan, which is currently owned by Jared Kushner's family. It was once the headquarters of Puck, a satirical magazine founded by Joseph Keppler in 1876 that ran until 1918. The symbol of Puck, the mischievous pixie from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, graces the building and seems a perfect symbol of the Trump administration. Puck was commissioned by the King and Queen of the Fairies to sabotage their rivals' marriage plans. The magazine's slogan, prominent on the masthead, was "What fools ...

EHS Homecoming Parade

We are looking forward to the Forest Festival homecoming season in Elkins. In 1930 the original reason the Elkins merchants began planning for a homecoming festival was to bring back those who had moved away from town. One great characteristic of American culture is the shared experience of community in schools. The Elkins High School Homecoming Parade last Wednesday made me think about what is being lost when we dismantle public schools. Music, sports, even higher math may be endangered. Elkins Middle School band led the EHS Homecoming Parade with a variety of brass, percussion, ...

Change is hard, but good leaders can help

I have frequent conversations with leaders regarding change. The term “change is hard” is commonly heard. At times, we can underestimate just how hard it is.  Some years back, a CEO of one of the world’s largest retail companies spoke at a conference. It is a big box company that was adding online shopping to their business model. The CEO hired an outside expert to help navigate the change. The top leaders met with him. All were incredibly talented individuals who saw themselves as people who lead change. The expert noticed each person wore a wristwatch. He asked each to take ...

Never complain, never explain

As Ronald Reagan quipped about Jimmy Carter in October 1980, "There he goes again." President Donald Trump has been making news at a frenetic pace. His speech in Dallas was a stream-of-consciousness screed that included administering a loyalty oath and calling himself "the greatest" of presidents. But as with everything Trump, you were not quite sure whether it was a joke or just an attempt to explore the theatre of the absurd. Boredom seems to drive all of this. Much like Gabriel García Márquez's novel "The Autumn of the Patriarch" which examines the decline of a South American ...

Recognition is a much-needed leadership skill

I have many teachers. Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick are two of them. They are best-selling authors, presenters, and coaches. Chester has presented in Pensacola, Florida, at the yearly EntreCon conference. Adrian and Chester appeared on a podcast with me. Adrian’s recent article that appeared in Forbes grabbed my attention: “The ‘Soft’ Leadership Skill That Shows Up on the Balance Sheet.” In it, Adrian outlines how skills considered soft have a large impact on the success of an organization.  I searched for the question “What are soft leadership skills?” This ...

Internal struggle over foreign policy

This has not been an easy year for President Donald Trump. He has lost himself in gratuitous comments and, frankly, has been all over the rhetorical map. But one area where he has shown some uniformity is his approach to China and Russia. Particularly toward the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, Trump has shown constancy. Perhaps the reason for this steadiness has been the stability of his foreign policy team, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Recently they visited Moscow and Kyiv. Unburdened by the clumsy Keith Kellogg, who followed a European Union script that could have been drafted by ...