"After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated this month in Utah, the state's governor, Spencer Cox, delivered a response that ought to be taught in leadership courses for years to come. "I think we need more moral clarity right now," Cox said during a powerful press conference two days after the shooting. "We hear all the time 'words are violence.' Words are not violence. Violence is violence.""
"Kirk's murder came after plots or attacks in recent years against public figures, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Donald Trump, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompason, and former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman. We've entered an "era of violent populism," according to University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape. And Kirk's murder has only inflamed political tensions in America that were already dangerously overheated."
"This month, those efforts are starting to look like a master class for lowering the national temperature. Cox's remarks after the shooting hewed to what Harvard Kennedy School leadership professor Marshall Ganz calls the "Empathetic Bridge." Each fall in his "Public Narrative" leadership course, Ganz tasks students with using this framework to evaluate the leadership successes or failures they have experienced either as an authority or as a member of a community."
Spencer Cox responded to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk with calm, morally clear rhetoric that distinguished words from physical violence and refused to assign blame. Cox emphasized empathetic, unifying leadership and promoted the National Governors Association's "Disagree Better" initiative as a tool to lower national tensions. The killing arrives amid an escalating pattern of attacks and plots against public figures, prompting concern about an era of violent populism. Cox's remarks align with Marshall Ganz's "Empathetic Bridge" framework and illustrate applying public narrative techniques to evaluate leadership choices and foster community-level accountability and constructive disagreement.
Read at Psychology Today
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