This post comes from the fabulous Caribou Coffee on East-West Highway in Silver Spring, Maryland. It’s a calm, gray day here across from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration building as people mill dreamily about, trying desperately to adjust to the time change as the morning’s caffeine sets in.

Tomorrow we will have a national election. My district’s voting will be right here, at NOAA. My neighbors and I will gather, likely to sit in line for what we will perceive to be an absurd amount of time. Out of pure faith, we assume that these votes will be accurately counted, and that the policy direction of this nation will be changed.

Does any of this matter? Aren’t we the prisoners of demographic and economic shifts? Don’t the entrenched and powerful cancel out any change we might try to engender? Can a leader really get anything done in just a few years?

Yes, it matters deeply. Leadership is still critically important in these complex, confusing times – perhaps moreso. I think that people in Western countries have been in stable political and economic systems for so long, that we are sometimes skeptical about the ability to change for good or for bad. That change is made possible – or impossible – by individual leaders, their mindsets, their skills, and the actions they take. The world is a different place because of them.

I am currently reading about Caesar Augustus, a man who said on his deathbed, “I found Rome made of clay; I give it to you made of marble.” His actions, in a few short decades, likely led to the establishment of Europe as a coherent cultural and political entity for two millennia after his death.

OK, so he’s probably credited as the most effective leader ever – how can we match up to historical standards on a daily basis?

By using the same process of long-term vision, tempered by modern management techniques. How do you do that?

We’re working on it. In fact, today, a group of like-minded managerial philosophers are meeting today for a project we call the “Next Generation Leadership Institute.” Over the next year, we’ll be exploring these questions in great detail. The moment is too important to let pass.

More to come.