“What will it take to rebuild trust?” asked Leadership Now CEO Daniella Ballou-Aares in the latest Democracy & Business Update on LinkedIn. “It starts with courageous individuals like Leadership Now honoree Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania's Secretary of State, who [in January] was awarded one of America’s top civilian honors for his defense of the 2020 vote while overseeing the Philadelphia election as a Republican City Commissioner. Even while he and his family endured threats to their safety, he stood up to Trump’s pressure to overturn the election results.”
“But people like Al Schmidt alone won’t be enough to defend and rebuild democracy for the long term,” Daniella wrote in the Leadership Now update. As NYU professor and democracy expert Richard Pildes discussed at Leadership Now’s 2022 annual meeting, polarized, ineffective government fosters an atmosphere where autocratically-inclined leaders who promise to ‘deliver’ and create order through strength can gain popular appeal and undercut democracy. We've seen this play out in countries from Hungary to Brazil to Italy to India in recent years.
“With the Edelman Trust Baromoter once again showing that business is the most trusted sector in society, the burden for all of us to use that trust wisely is high. How can you help rebuild trust in our system, even as some political leaders burn it?”
Read on in the Monthly Business + Democracy Update
for Daniella Ballou-Aares’ tally of the low and high points for trusted leadership that have defined the start to 2023 — and the latest perspectives of Leadership Now and its members in the press.
Subscribe to the Monthly Business + Democracy Update on LinkedIn.