Heard at the Grounds: Creek Election on \”Leadership Traits\”

By ef mouss

At the Eufaula Indian Community forum held Thursday pm, August 25th, the full range of candidates from Council Representatives to Principal Chief contained improved political substance from earlier messages conveyed to the voters. Three Principal Chief candidates separated themselves from the remainder expressing real-life experiences of leadership in the United States military, real world leadership experiences in an external business environment and real-life accomplishment experience in a Federal/Tribal environment .… all required experiences in today’s Tribal Government leadership position. Other principle officer candidates appeared to have an in-ward looking focus citing having worked for the tribal Government. A Qualified Creek Leader must have internal leader qualities and experiences as well as external leader qualities and experiences.

I have identified five (5) leadership qualities which our Creek leaders should possess. These five traits/leadership qualities for all candidates for office are:

1. Honest
2. Forward-Looking
3. Competent
4. Inspiring
5. Intelligent

The focus of each of these five traits is on what people see you the candidate do–not just the things they don’t see you do. (Actions speak louder than words.) It is important that each candidate exhibit, model and display these traits. Simply possessing each trait is not enough
(All Talk and No Action); You , the candidate, must display these traits in a way that people notice (Walk the Walk) and as someone who is worth following.

1. Honesty as a Leadership Quality
What real life experiences in the candidates life and political actions has the candidate demonstrated and displayed honesty and demonstrated that they, as a candidate, are a trust-worthy person to lead the community of Creek people ?

2. Forward-Looking as a Leadership Trait
The whole point of leadership is figuring out where to go from where you are now. To demonstrate leadership abilities, where does each candidate propose to lead the Creek people and what experiences does the candidate have to guide the Creek people?

[When people do not consider their leader forward-looking, that leader is usually suffering from one of two possible problems:

a. The leader doesn’t have a forward-looking vision or no vision at all.

or

b. The leader is unwilling or scared to share the vision with others.]

3. Competency as a Leadership Quality
People want to follow a leader who is competent and a leader needs to be able to demonstrate competency.
What experiences and actions taken does a candidate have that demonstrates competency to lead the Creek Government, a government not programs! Bluster does not count!

4. Inspiration as a Leadership Trait
People want to be inspired! In fact, there is a whole class of people who will follow an inspiring leader–even when the leader has no other qualities. What inspiring message does a candidate have for the Creek people in our search for a direction of governing? Empty promises or fact-based real-world!

5. Intelligence as a Leadership Quality
People want to follow someone who is intelligent. The Creek experience and actions have clearly demonstrated that the Creek Government and the people will rise or benefit no higher than its leadership. Our current leadership has demonstrated how unintelligent leadership can harm individual Creek lives.

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Mr. Mouss served with the U.S. Congress’ American Indian Policy Commission; Creek Nation Housing Authority Commissioner; First Election Board for the Creek Nation; Adjct Prof Univ of Okla and Okla St Univ; Tribal Co-chair for PL 93-638 Federal Negotiated Rule-Making Committee; Federal Chair for the Contract Support Work Group; Director for Information Resource Mgmt/IHS/HHS; Chief Self-Determination Services/Interior; Chair Okla and Nat’l Indian Health Board, numerous National Tribal/Federal Taskforces and Work groups, Creek Interpreter-Okfuskee Cty Dist. Court.