Houston Newsmakers: The failure of leadership

Founder of American Leadership Forum offers advice

Houston Chapter to celebrate 40 years of leadership training (American Leadership Forum)

Fracture of social and political norms

Joseph Jaworski was a successful attorney when he saw a leadership crisis in America on the heels of the Watergate crisis.

His father Leon had been Watergate Special Prosecutor which offered Joseph a front-row seat to the result of failed leadership. Years later he founded the American Leadership Forum designed to “strengthen collaborative civic leadership in the United States.”

The first chapter of “ALF” was founded here in Houston and as the Gulf Coast Chapter prepares to celebrate its 40th anniversary Mr. Jaworski is a guest on Houston Newsmakers with Khambrel Marshall. He says the current fracture of social and political norms can be traced to the lack of trust for and among our leaders.

“Let’s face it,” he said. “You can see in today’s political environment and business environment there’s a lot of mistrust between the leader themselves.”

He says he was born an optimist and thinks the ALF model is a key to helping to solve the current crisis.

“I am convinced we can do it.,” he said. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work. It’s going to take money. It’s going to take resources to create this new infrastructure, but we can do it.”

See the full interview on this week’s program and additional comments on Newsmakers EXTRA online.

Help Children in CPS custody celebrate the holidays

13,000 children in CPS custody received holiday gifts last year, thanks to the generosity of Houstonians.

Tammy Hetmaniak is the director of the Be A Resource program (BEAR) which is a nonprofit resource for CPS children.

She said she and the caseworkers who care for the children in protective custody count on the public for help.

“The caseworkers work with the children under the care of CPS to collect their wishes,” she said. “Then we have community members sponsor those children and each child can send two to three wishes and the community members fill those wishes for the children.”

Find out how you can support this worthy program on this week’s program.

Celebrating a Motown Christmas

Fans of Motown music are in luck this holiday season as the Ensemble Theater hosts the production, A Motown Christmas through December 26th.

“You get Stevie Wonder, Smokie Robinson, the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye and you get a lot of their Christmas music,” said Chika Kaba Ma’atunde, Musical Director. “But you also get some of the traditional music that they did that we all know and love.”

See full interview to find out more about the production and how to get tickets.