CHAPEL HILL - “We have a crisis in leadership” Gen. Jim Anderson told the East Chapel Hill Rotary Club on the occasion of the 300th program of the Governors Club Speakers Resource.

The crisis can be found today in many arenas of our institutions, corporate and public life, the retired U.S. Army general said Jim Anderson said in his march 2 talk. A professor of Leadership at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for more than 20 years, Anderson shared his own philosophy of leadership as a blend of competence and character.

“What we have is organizational failure at the core of leadership but, more importantly, a failure of character,” he said. To overcome this failing, this “crisis of leadership,” we must build and develop leaders of character.

Priciples for such leaders must include courageous contribution to any issue, acting unselfishly demanding more of themselves than others, and defying adversity without fear for themselves, their comfort or safety. Most importantly, he said, is living out the creed “Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do”

Anderson is a graduate of West Point where he taught leadership to a generation of military officers and served on the athletic committee. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in biomechanics from Indiana University. His service in Viet Nam was featured in a segment of the recent History Channel's “Viet Nam in HD.” He currently serves on the faculty of the Lincoln Leadership Institute at Gettysburg, where he teaches leadership and strategy to corporate executives on the Battlefield. “Jim is a remarkable and charismatic speaker”, says his co-founder Lowell Hoffman. “He offers a strong message of leadership, character and integrity to all who have the good fortune to hear him speak.”

Anderson is a co-founder of the Speakers Resource, a roster of 24 residents of the Governors Club community, who share their areas of expertise and life experience as a public service with area organizations..

The Speakers Resource has provided programs to a wide range of organizations including Carrboro-Chapel Hill Kiwanis, Golden Kiwanis, Peer Learning, Durham Middle High School, Woods Charter School and area Rotary Clubs including North Raleigh, Crabtree, Garner and Morrisville.