Is This Leadership? 600 Days of Undemocratic One-Man Rule

Thursday, October 21st marked 600 days of one-man rule in Washington State.

We decided to go through various websites that contain quotes of effective leadership to see if we could find any that support how Governor Jay Inslee has led the state since he issued his emergency proclamation on February 29^th, 2020.

Here are a half dozen quotes we found.  Do you think Governor Inslee meets the leadership criteria outlined by the speaker?

“A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” –Arnold Glasow

“Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.” –Pete Hoekstra

“To add value to others, one must first value others.” –John Maxwell

“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.” —Andrew Carnegie

“The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.” –Dwight D. Eisenhower

“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” –Bill Gates

As much as we looked we could not find any quote that support the tactics used by our governor.

• None of the quotes say alienate the governed by denying them a voice in decisions.
• None of the quotes say divide those you are supposed to be leading by rewarding a few and publicly insulting others with partisan allegations.
• None of the quotes say take all the credit, especially if “victory” is being claimed embarrassingly too early.
• None of the quotes say lie about why you have chosen a course of action (such as, falsely claiming that if the legislature was involved in decisions, Republicans would immediately rip away everyone’s health care).
• None of the quotes say remove experts from the decision-making
• None of the quotes say impose restrictions on the governed but make exceptions to those who finance your campaigns. (Of all the state workers who Inslee chose not to impose his vaccine mandate on are those who work closely with the elderly and the infirmed – those most susceptible to the effects of COVID.)
• None of the quotes say leaders should appear clueless about major events because you don’t want to talk about them.
• None of the quotes say hide from your failures (especially when you lose $650 million) or have your subordinates attempt to interfere with the investigation.

We could fill many pages with the failures in leadership demonstrated by the governor over the past 600 days and how his tactics have divided the state’s population instead of bringing people together to combat the COVID-19 virus. (Last summer Shift presented a series of articles on the many failings of the governor during the pandemic.  You can read them here, here, and here.)

It is time to end Governor Inslee’s authoritarian rule in Washington State. Sign Shift’s petition which we will be delivering to the governor and legislative leaders.  Let them know, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!