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Germany’s Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is having a hard time of it. It is not that he is personally disliked and disrespected. He is not. Rather it is that he is politically disliked and disrespected. Friend and foe alike now think him an ineffective leader, incapable of leading Germans to where they need to go.

It is impossible to understand what has happened in Germany during the almost three years that Scholz has been chancellor by looking only at him. As always, to grasp the situation – to explain why fully 77% of the German people think him a “weak leader” – we must look at the system, at the leadership system. That is, we must look at 1) the leader; 2) his followers; and 3) the contexts within which the leader and his followers are situated.

The Leader

Let’s begin at the beginning. At the moment in December 2021 when Scholz took office. It was his bad luck to succeed a leader who was legendary. Her name was (is) Angela Merkel, a woman no less who had led Germany for 16 years. In retrospect Merkel made some serious mistakes – trusting Vladimir Putin highest on the list. But overall, she was highly admired, and she still is. Merkel would have been for the best of men a hard act to follow. But Scholz is not the best of men, certainly not the best political leader in a time when nearly all political leaders in Western democracies are having a hard time of it. He is smart but he is the antithesis of charismatic. He makes plans but then waffles when it comes to implementing them. He is out of his league when it comes to managing those who purportedly are his political partners.   

The Followers

Scholz’s approval ratings are the lowest of any German chancellor in 35 years. Is this because he is so awful, so dreadfully incompetent or maybe deeply unethical? No. Rather it is because Germans are like Americans, and for that matter like electorates in other Western democracies. Specifically, most of us are quick to carp and criticize people in positions of authority; and we are restless and rude, much, much more likely to diminish and demean our leaders than to praise and appreciate them. Similarly, Scholz’s coalition partners, who are acting more like nasty kindergartners than as responsible allies. As the Financial Times recently affirmed, “Tensions between [Scholz’s] partners in government … have reached new heights.” This in a country with an infamously difficult, dark history in which, to boot, a far-right party (Alternative for Germany) has recently made alarmingly strong gains.

The Context

Let’s get real. Whatever Scholz’s shortcomings he is not primarily responsible for the pickle in which Germany currently finds itself. The country that for decades was Europe’s most powerful economic driver, is now, to quote from a recent International Monetary Fund report, “struggling.” The report points out that last year Germany was the only one among its large European peers in which the economy shrank as opposed to expanded, and that this year’s prospects look equally bleak. Some of Germany’s problems are easily explainable and some, maybe, relatively easily remediable. But others are not at all amenable to quick fixes. Its population is aging, and the German people have been spoiled with generous benefits that will be politically exceedingly difficult to modify. (Just ask the CEO of Volkswagen, who as I write has his hands full trying to downsize the company’s workforce.) And, at a time when issues of national security are at the forefront of every country in Europe – think Russia’s unprovoked attack on Germany’s near neighbor Ukraine – Germany is not only lagging in its national defense but still torn about how far to deviate from its postwar passion for demilitarization.

Poor Olaf. He is not God’s gift to the German chancellery. But nor does he deserve being Germany’s whipping boy.

Who might you wonder? Eric Adams, who, since January 2022, has been Mayor of New York, which, despite not because of Adams, remains one of the world’s great cities.

In my book, Bad Leadership: What It Is, Why It Happens, How It Matters, I identified seven different types of bad leadership. Adams checks several of the boxes.

Here, however, I’ll keep it simple. Essentially bad/good leadership runs along two axes: one a continuum from ethical to unethical; the other a continuum from competent to incompetent. Adams is both unethical and incompetent. He reflects badly on himself, on his followers, and on the city that, unfortunately, he still leads.

At the end of last year Eric Adams already had the lowest approval ratings of any mayor in New York City’s history. And that was then.

Now we know more about how bad he really is. Specifically, we’ve been aware for some time that he was incompetent. That with him at the helm the city has foundered on housing, on immigrants, and on post-covid recovery, among its other chronic problems. We’ve also read, repeatedly, about Adams’s unfortunate personal life, in which he seems much to prefer partying with unsavory cronies to other forms of recreation.

 But what we have only recently begun to understand is how deeply corrupt is apparently the administration of Mayor Adams. To be clear, so far no one, including the mayor himself, has been charged with a crime. But what we do know now is that on his team was a cadre of characters who are targets of four separate federal investigations. Just yesterday New York City’s Police Commissioner resigned, Edward Caban admitting that “the news around recent developments has created a distraction for our department.”

Never when a leader is bad is it a small thing. When a leader of a major metropolis is bad it’s a big thing – and a sad thing.  Which raises the question, again, of what to do when a leader is bad.

How is she a leader? Let me count the ways.

1. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads artistically.
2. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads culturally.
3. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads stylistically.
4. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads socially.
5. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads economically. (Nationally and internationally, they pay hefty sums to see her perform.)  
6. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads financially. (She personally is now worth over a billion dollars.)
7. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads geographically. (They want to see her perform in such enormous numbers that they impact the economies of the cities in which she appears – globally.)
8. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads civically. (Within 15 hours after she posted voter registration information on Instagram the daily number seeking same went from an average of 40,000 to well over 300,000.)   
9. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads politically. (Within hours after her endorsement of Kamala Harris for president her post received 9.5 million likes.)
10. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads personally. (They constitute one of the largest and most devoted fan bases in American history. And once she registers her preference for anything or anyone, in countless cases it becomes their preference.)

Many Swifties – as her hardcore followers are known – are too young to have a direct impact. Many are, for example, too young to vote or to spend their own money. But given there are legions of them, and given their high levels of participation and even passion, we make a mistake if we underestimate the power of their contagion. Swift is not like other celebrities. Right now at least she exerts influence like no other. Moreover, there are many other Swifties who are by no means too young to do what they want when they want – including following where she leads.

Swift’s endorsement of Harris within minutes after the debate between her and Donald Trump was over testifies to Swift’s civic engagement: she seems determined to do what she can to get Americans first to register to vote and then to get them to vote for Harris. Which leaves us with this question: Can she get other leaders to follow her lead? Will her example prompt others in positions of power to dare to make public their political preference?

Like leadership gossip? Like inside stories about how leaders operate behind closed doors? Like seeing Big Boys act like little children? Like watching mud wrestling? Like journalism at its juicy best?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, do I have an article for you!

But be forewarned. First, the piece is quite long, it’s not a five-minute read. Second, the piece is not about two 800-pound gorillas. Rather it’s about one 800-pound gorilla wrestling to the ground another gorilla who, however, is half his size. The name of the first ape is Bob Iger. The name of the second is Bob Chapek. Finally, you should know before you go that Mickey would be mortified.

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Here’s the link to the New York Times piece. If the link doesn’t embed, search for “Palace Coup at the Magic Kingdom,” by James B. Stewart and Brooks Barnes.

In my most recent book, Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers, one of the leaders on whom I focused was Martin Winterkorn. Winterkorn was chief executive officer of Volkswagen between 2007 and 2015. He presided over the company during virtually the entirety of its emissions scandal – Volkswagen regularly installed in its vehicles a “cheat device,” deliberately intended to mislead regulators on the number of pollutants being spewed in the air – blackening his name forever and Volkswagen’s for years thereafter.   

Winterkorn was not, of course, alone to blame. Bad leaders cannot function without bad followers. As I wrote in the book, “All his followers followed his [lead]. And a number were complicit from start to finish, including in the coverup. What happened at Volkswagen was then a consequence of bad leadership and bad followership. Both evolved over the years, and congealed over the years, from bad to worse.”  

But the buck stops at the top. Winterkorn was primarily responsible for what happened, responsible for being not only a corrupt leader – year after year he tolerated and tacitly supported an illegal scheme – but a callous one. Throughout his tenure at the top Winterkorn was personally and professionally arrogant, dependably rude and highly controlling.

Withal, until now, he got away with a slap on the wrist. Until now, like nearly every other executive found guilty of wrongdoing, he was able largely to escape the long arm of the law. However, just this week the worm turned. Finally! Winterkorn was obliged to appear in a German courtroom after the judge rejected his umpteenth appeal to postpone the trial on the grounds of poor health.     

Once upon a time, what seems long, long ago, Martin Winterkorn was Germany’s best known and highest paid chief executive. He was hard charging, intensely ambitious, and driven, so to speak, to beat every last one of his competitors. That was then. Now he is facing criminal charges that include fraud, market manipulation, and making false statements.

Given that on Winterkorn’s watch Volkswagen and its various units sold some nine million cars outfitted with illegal, deliberately deceptive software, it seems only fair and entirely fitting that at long last he’s being held to account. Would we could say the same of all highfliers who are wrongdoers.

The spectacle of Israel once again sundered by its own Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is deeply saddening but hardly shocking.  Quite the opposite. His persistence in power confirms yet again three timeless truths as they apply to all bad leaders. No matter which region or nation; no matter which time or place; no matter which group or organization; no matter which culture or sector.  

1. Most bad leaders are difficult to uproot.
2. The more time passes the more difficult it is to uproot them.
3. Bad leaders – all bad leaders – become worse if they are left in power to fester.

Do these truths suggest we have lessons to learn? They do.

One could make the case – and I have – that the study of followership was primarily prompted by the events of World War II. How was it possible, some social scientists started to ask a decade or so after the war ended, that citizens of a country as cultured as Germany followed – many highly eagerly and many others wildly enthusiastically – a leader as evil as Adolf Hitler? Hitler who was able, despite his being a genocidal, ultimately compulsively destructive dictator, to get most of his followers to do most his bidding most of the time – and of their own volition.

It’s a question that in the last seventy-five years has been asked, repeatedly. Though there are still thousands more books on Hitler specifically than on Nazis generally, there are now many studies not only about Germans during the 1920’s, ‘30s and ‘40’s, but about the historical context within which the Nazi era originally unfolded and ultimately unraveled.

Moreover, the fascination with ordinary people (to use Christopher Browning’s indelible phrase) during an extraordinary time persists. Which explains why we have a significant contribution to the literature, by a distinguished British historian of modern Germany, Richard J. Evans. As the title of his new book suggests – Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich – the focus here is not on Hitler. Rather it is on those who dedicated themselves, effectively slavishly, to doing what he ordered them to do.

After the first chapter, a long one about Hitler, Evans does what most of us who write about followers do – divide them into groups. Inevitably we find that all followers are not alike. Thus, the rest of the book is divided into three parts, each about a different type of follower. Evans does not use the word “follower.” He uses, as in the title, “people.” Nevertheless, followers is who we’re talking about here: dedicated Nazis who followed wherever Hitler led.

Part one is about “The Paladins,” men who were highest in the hierarchy and who were therefore, after Hitler, the most powerful people in the Third Reich. Most of the names in this section are familiar; they include Herman Goering, Heinrich Himmler, Albert Speer and Joseph Goebbels.  

Part two is about “The Enforcers.” They were less important than the Paladins but nevertheless key to executing orders given them from on higher. Most of these names are also familiar certainly to those who know the history of Nazi Germany; they include Rudolf Hess, Franz von Papen, Julius Streicher and Adolf Eichmann.

Finally, part three is about “The Instruments,” most though not all bourgeois Germans, too many of whom were found after the war to have committed “appalling crimes.” Like other scholars before him, Evans points out that it will not suffice to say that these people were “just obeying orders.” For in nearly all cases they had choices.     

Hitler’s People is recommended as a primer on Nazi followers of the Nazi leader. It is well written and clearly organized by an expert on Germany in the mid-twentieth century. But students and scholars of leadership and followership looking for information, or an angle, that is new or different will be disappointed. This is not because Evans is deficient. Rather it is because this ground is already very, very well covered. More to the point perhaps, there is no Rosetta Stone here, no key to understanding what happened, how it was possible for an entire people to either directly or indirectly sanction sadistic mayhem and murder.

Evans himself admits that “individual psychopathology is of little use here.” He further acknowledges that the “range of explanations … for why people supported Hitler and implemented, or accepted, Nazi policies and ideas is almost limitless.” What he falls back on then – for good reason – is the importance of context. Specifically, the rage for revenge engendered by the “humiliation” of Germany’s defeat in the first world war and, additionally, the subsequent rampant inflation.

What happened in Nazi Germany cannot, then, be understood without understanding the three parts of what I call the leadership system: the leader, the followers, and the contexts. Evans himself concludes that, “Only by situating the biographies of individual Nazi perpetrators, with all their idiosyncrasies and peculiarities, in these larger contexts, can we begin to understand how Naziism exerted its baleful influence.”      

I nearly never post just to draw attention to other articles.  But the piece to which I provide the link below – about a research paper of the same title as above – might well be of interest.

It’s about identifying good “managers,” not good “leaders.” I leave it to you to decide if in this case they are one in the same. And if not, why not? What’s the difference?

You want to be the boss. You probably won’t be good at it. — Harvard Gazette

Not since the sensational scandal at Enron led to its collapse more than two decades ago has a major American corporation been as publicly and persistently plagued by problems as Boeing.

Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company – in the U.S. alone it employs more than 150,000 people. Moreover, for well over a half century the excellence of Boeing’s performance made it a jewel in America’s corporate crown. But in recent years it has suffered humiliating and debilitating setbacks including two tragic aircraft accidents. To be clear: its jetliners continue to fly all over the world and the company is still servicing both the miliary and civilian sectors. But in recent years Boeing has repeatedly been brought to its knees.

I wrote briefly about Boeing in my latest book, Leadership from Bad to Worse.

Here is a glaring, indeed horrific example of ineffective – and yes, arguably also unethical – leadership enabled by ineffective followership. Dennis Muilenburg, former CEO of Boeing, and others at [the company] who, when things threatened to go wrong, and then did, should have intervened. In October 2018, a Boeing 737 Max jet crashed off the coast of Indonesia, killing 189 passengers and crew. [Further]a few months later… a second Boeing 737 Max crashed, this one also killing all on board, 157 passengers and crew.

I concluded that under Muilenberg Boeing developed a company culture so intent on remaining competitive that safety standards were compromised. What was not, however, clear when I wrote the book was that under Muilenberg’s successor, David Calhoun, safety concerns would continue to bedevil the company, further tarnishing its reputation and costing it planeloads of money.

The most infamous of recent incidents – which not only was dramatic but near-catastrophic – was the midair blowout last January of a door-sized fuselage panel on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9. Just this week the Seattle Times published a detailed account of what happened, compiled from the transcripts of interviews conducted by federal investigators. The findings were not heartening. Under Calhoun quality control issues at Boeing persisted. While the origins of the sloppiness that explains the blowout remain in dispute, what is inarguable is that problems at Boeing are ongoing.

As if to underscore the point, just a few days ago NASA decided that instead of relying on Boeing’s Starliner capsule to bring back to earth the two stranded astronauts – the original plan was to have them stay aboard the International Space Station for 8 days; instead, technical issues have obliged them to remain in space for what now looks like eight months – they are turning to Space X to accomplish the task. Clearly it was decided that the company founded and led by Elon Musk has a more reliable vehicle than does the once venerated Boeing. So, in yet another stunning blow to Boeing’s reputation, the Starliner – which has cost the company more than $1.4 billion in losses – will return to earth without the two person crew. Instead, they are now slated to be brought back in February on Space X’s Dragon craft.  

Calhoun was Boeing’s chief executive officer for four years. He exited this month, turning the reins over to his successor, Robert “Kelly” Ortberg, whose mandate is clear. First, rectifying a company culture that remains troubled, and second, reducing Boeing’s debt.

Usually, we look to leaders, especially new leaders, as saviors. But when it was announced that Ortberg would be Calhoun’s successor the mood was grim. The headline in the New York Times noted that to catch up with its major competitor, Airbus, Boeing faced a “steep climb.” And in the Wall Street Journal one headline cautioned that “Boeing’s New Pilot Faces Rough Skies”; another reminded readers that “Boeing Factories Remain Source of Concern.”   

If Ortberg can pull Boeing out of its years-long decline, he will be hailed as a hero-leader. But if he cannot not, if he fails as did his two predecessors, will he be blamed? Despite the two terrible tragedies that happened on his watch, when Muilenberg left the company, he received $58 million in compensation and pension benefits. And, despite the problems that persisted on his watch, Calhoun also made out exceedingly well. For his performance in 2023, for example, he pulled in a cool $33 million.

Which raises this question. Why are most of us made to pay for our mistakes but a few of us are not? Why are leaders like these exempt from being held to account?  

At the final session of the 2024 Democratic National Convention Kamala Harris had one paramount task. To persuade as many Americans as possible that she was plausible as president of the United States. That we could picture her in the Oval Office, presiding over the nation as chief executive – and as commander in chief. That we could see her as a leader who had the capacity to captain what she herself described as the greatest nation on earth.     

The bar was especially high because Harris seemed to have come out of nowhere. Not literally, of course; after all, she had been vice president for over three and a half years. But most Americans knew nearly nothing about her: her professional and political history were unfamiliar; throughout her time as vice president she was in the background not the foreground; and given President Joe Biden’s abrupt withdrawal from the campaign she had nearly no time to introduce herself to the American people.

Additionally, Harris lacks the traditional credentials. She is not white – up to now only one American president did not have two white parents. And she is not a man – up to now has never been an American president who was a woman. So, while Harris was intermittently in evidence throughout the Convention, it was only on the last night, during her speech formally accepting her party’s nomination for president, that she was able more fully to define herself. And to try thereby to persuade the American people that she belongs in the White House not just because of her experience as vice president but on account of her own character and credentials.  

The reaction to her speech has been overwhelmingly positive. (Even Bret Hume, on Fox News, described it as “very strong.”) How did she do it? How, in about 40 minutes of public speaking, did Kamala Harris paint a portrait of herself as a plausible president? Five replies: 1) identity; 2) unity; 3) security; 4) liberty; and 5) androgyny.

Identity – Harris introduced herself more fully to the American people. She spoke about her childhood; about her father from Jamaica briefly and more extensively about her mother from India who primarily raised her; about her early immersion in the civil rights movement; and about her choice of a career in public sector law where the credo is, “a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us.”

Unity – Harris reached out repeatedly not to some Americans but to all Americans. “I will be a president who unites us around our highest expectations,” she said. And she made clear that she had no interest in furthering or fostering factions and divisions; instead she intended to embrace the full spectrum of American beliefs, attitudes, and opinions, and the full spectrum of American identities including race, religion, region, and party identification.

Security – Harris knows that for many Americans picturing a woman as commander in chief is an unnatural act. She knew therefore that one of her main missions was to make herself seem fit for that task. So she spoke about her past fights against “cartels who traffic in guns, drugs, and human beings.” She spoke about her future fights against Donald Trump’s “chaos and calamity.” And she spoke of her commitment to keeping American strong – to ensuring that it has “the strongest and most lethal fighting force in the world.” Of course, “security” has other implications, for example, health security and wealth security, which Harris covered as well.

Liberty – Harris was in keeping with a theme of the convention – “freedom.” Over and over again over four days the word was repeated – a mantra that signaled everything from freedom broadly to freedom specifically, for example of a woman to control her own body. “We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world. And on behalf of our children and grandchildren, and all those who sacrificed so dearly for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of this moment.”

Androgyny – Harris’s speech last night was not only about content, but it was also about delivery. About her presentation of self… how she looked and sounded, dressed and spoke, her body language and facial expressions. In an article I wrote a decade ago titled “Leading Androgynously,” I cited research by Alice Eagly and Linda Carli that found that “successful female leaders generally find a middle way that is neither unacceptably masculine nor unacceptably feminine.” Harris has learned – is learning still – to fall into this category. She is a good-looking woman who does not downplay her femininity. However, she invariably dresses in pantsuits, usually with tops under her jackets that go all the way up to her neck, and she does not notably adorn herself. Moreover, she is learning to laugh and smile somewhat less – unquestionably as a woman now at the center of the political stage to her advantage. And she is learning to sound stronger and tougher – unquestionably as a woman now at the center of the political stage to her advantage.

In the last month and especially last week Kamala Harris did what she needed to do before she did anything else – depict herself a plausible president. While her climb to the top of America’s political ladder will be challanging in the extreme, her readiness to step up the next rung is now without question.