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Breakthroughs in technology are not new. They are, moreover, predictable. Not what they will consist of. Nor the changes to which they will lead. Instead, what we can predict is that such breakthroughs are inevitable, and that when they occur, being caught flat-footed is ill-advised. What we similarly know is that the leaders we now have – including our political leaders, business leaders, leaders in education and religion, in the military and the media – generally are ill-equipped to deal with the latest technological breakthrough, artificial intelligence, AI.

Previous technological breakthroughs – for example, the printing press and during the industrial and information revolutions –led to upheavals that ultimately were difficult or impossible to control. These upheavals were in every area including ideas and information; politics and economics; modes of production and distribution; arts and culture; power and influence at both the national and international levels.

Now is another breakthrough in technology – AI. While it is not new, the response by experts and laypersons alike to ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and released just six months ago, suggests that AI has crossed a threshold. From an early and still obscure technology to one that seems almost overnight to present a personal, professional, and maybe even existential threat. Of course, the level of uncertainty remains extremely high. Not only do we have no idea how many jobs will, for example, be automated by AI. We have no idea what this automation implies. Elimination of tens of millions of jobs? Or transformation of tens of millions of jobs?

Leaders have a bad track record controlling or even managing the technologies that in time tend to outrun them. Though there has been much handwringing about the harm done by, for example, social media, there is no sign that leaders are able or willing to harness the beast they let loose.

Not good – especially if you believe that the risks of AI are best expressed by those who presumably know best. Specifically, by some 350 industry leaders who recently wrote in an open letter that “mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other society-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

However well intended the executives, researchers, and engineers who cooperated to write the letter, there’s not a chance they’ll be able or even willing to stop the train that already left the station. Quite the opposite. They’re all competing to see who can go faster and further. Who can outstrip the competition to raise AI to greater and potentially more dangerous heights. 

If leaders in business and science are unlikely watchdogs, what about leaders in politics? The prospects are not promising. The average age of members of Congress is 65 – itself a major problem. A generational problem. A cohort of political leaders still struggling to manage the information revolution, not to speak of the revolution in artificial intelligence. Most cannot even grasp what they are supposed to control. Moreover, given their track record of helplessness and haplessness particularly as it pertains to tech, how can we possibly be confident that America’s elected officials will better manage breakthrough technologies in the future?

Europe’s leaders have done a better job addressing the problem than their American counterparts. Professor James Heskett credits the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act for achieving the world’s “the most extensive approach” to relevant regulation. But while the Act does exercise a measure of control, this could be a case of the genie already out of the bottle. It remains unclear whether it will be possible to regulate AI in a way that is substantial, that ultimately is meaningful.

What then is to be done? Will, can, anything, anyone, have a positive impact? Some ideas have already been put forth. For instance, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, suggested enacting federal regulations such as requiring licenses ensuring that AI models are thoroughly tested before being made available. But it all seems a bit like putting a finger in a dike, like, to mix metaphors, shutting the barn door after the horse already got out.   

How then to maximize Leader Intelligence in the age of Artificial Intelligence? Given that leaders – all leaders, including political leaders and corporate leaders – cannot possibly conquer or even control technology, the question becomes what is leader intelligence in the age of artificial intelligence? What should leaders be, what should leaders know, when technologies threaten to outrun them at every turn? Threaten to out-know them, to out-pace them, to out-perform them?

Three attributes stand out.

• The first is for leaders to become more human. To become more humane. To return to being generalists as opposed to specialists.
• The second is for leaders to become less national and more international. To become less parochial and more ecumenical.  
• The third is for leaders to become more contextually aware. To become less focused on themselves and more focused on their followers – and on the multiple contexts within which they and their followers are located.

How can these attributes be cultivated, inculcated? How should leaders learn in the age of AI? My book on how leaders should learn – Professionalizing Leadership – was published in 2018, before AI was front and center.* Still, the sequential, three step process that I advocated then is even more relevant now – in the age of AI – than it was then. Step 1: Leaders should be educated. Step 2: Leaders should be trained. And Step 3: Leaders should be developed. The process is not quick; it is slow. It takes years to learn how to lead – a lifetime of learning, a lifetime of accommodating and adapting to change. Change such as AI entering our bloodstream – our mainstream.

I’ll conclude this post by focusing on Step One, on educating leaders. (Subsequent posts will focus on Steps 2 and 3.) How should leaders be educated in the age of AI? How could they become more human? And more humane? And more generalists than specialists? The answer is clear, and it is not arcane. In fact, in a June 10 Wall Street Journal article titled, “Great Books Can Heal Our Divided Campuses,” Professor Andrew Delbanco applied the same logic to a different, though related, problem. How to repair the nation’s fractured colleges and universities?  

Delbanco properly notes that the great moral and historical questions belong to the humanities (history, literature, philosophy, and the arts) and to social sciences such as political science and sociology, and, I would add, psychology.  He writes about the virtues of a core curriculum that represents the best of a “general education that assigns or attracts students to classes explicitly focused on broad human themes, with common reading lists and with peers whose origins, interest and ambitions differ from their own.” Delbanco concludes his piece by arguing that “at our centrifugal moment, we have an opportunity and an obligation to rethink general education” – which is precisely what I am arguing applies equally to leadership education.

If humankind is to have a future it must educate leaders to become humanists, globalists, and ecumenicists. Without exception the greatest dangers to planet earth – pandemics, nuclear wars, climate catastrophes, and the risks posed by artificial intelligence – require deep thinking, broad thinking, and open thinking.

It’s why leaders should be educated before they are trained, and it’s why their education should consist of shared experiences in the humanities and social sciences. These experiences should include reading, analyzing, and discussing a wide range of works by, for example, Confucius and Plato, Shakespeare and Tagore, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Nelson Mandela, Dostoyevsky and Freud. Are thinkers, writers, activists, poets and philosophers such as these relevant to managing artificial intelligence? Yes.

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*Oxford University Press, 2018.  

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the latest example of a leader going from bad to worse – if he or she has not been stopped or at least slowed by being impeded or interrupted. Erdogan just won reelection to another five-year term.  This despite each of the following:

— He has already held one of Turkey’s two highest posts for over twenty years. He was a powerful prime minister from 2003 to 2014. And he has been a nearly all-powerful president from 2014 to the present.  

— He defied the odds. Predictions were that this time around Erdogan might well not win. Reasons why include Turkey’s prolonged and now perilous economic decline; the government’s sluggish, sloppy response to February’s devastating earthquakes; the rampant corruption that was revealed by the earthquakes; and a political opposition that was relatively unified.

— He claimed at the beginning of his political life to be a democrat not an autocrat. During his early years as prime minister he appeared to pride himself on being a centrist, tolerant of nearly all Turks, no matter their differences. At the same time, he took pains to improve the lives of pious Muslim who had long seen themselves, with reason, as second-class citizens. However, as the years passed, Erdogan became hungrier for power – and then hungrier for still more. To the point where he shut up and locked up his opponents; weakened competing institutions including the legislature and the courts; and wielded near total control over Turkey’s media.

— He changed course not only at home but abroad, proving a reluctant and recalcitrant member of NATO, while repeatedly siding with, and sidling up to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin – even after Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Now, in the wake of this Turkish election, Erdogan is likely not only to move closer to Putin, but increasingly to resemble Putin. To become a mini-Putin. Even more than before Erdogan will almost certainly style himself an Eastern autocrat, not a Western democrat.

Most striking about Erdogan is his trajectory. He began his political life as one sort of leader but over time became another sort of leader. Nor is Erdogan the only leader to have changed, to have become, as the years passed, more extreme in his political opinions and behaviors. A recent article in the Washington Post titled “The Deepening Radicalization of Donald J. Trump,” chronicled how Trump had evolved even in recent years. It left little doubt that a second Trump presidency would enable him to “take revenge on his political opponents and push even further on his most polarizing programs.”   

Things change. People change. When leaders change the likelihood is they will continue to change. How? Past is prologue.

Memorial Day is observed each year on the last Monday in May, to honor those who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Implicitly it also celebrates the ideals for which they fought, especially perhaps democracy. Americans extoll democracy even while they, most of us, do not esteem those who lead our democracy. Nor are we alone in withholding our approval of those who occupy the nation’s highest office. Other leaders of other democracies experience a similar lack of appreciation and support.

As its title suggests, I predicted the trend in my book, The End of Leadership, published in 2012. Still, it’s one thing to make a prediction, it’s another to see it come to pass. It’s another to live in a time in which the American people – and other people in other democracies – are so inordinately reluctant to follow where their leaders lead that it frequently results either in political paralysis or in what seems at least constant bitching and moaning.

Nowhere is this exemplified more vividly than in France. Though President Emmanuel Macron was able ultimately to push through a highly unpopular law mandating the retirement age be pushed from 62 to 64, weeks after the law became a fait accompli, French followers were still hounding and harassing Macron whenever he had the temerity to appear in public. By banging on pots and pans to earsplitting, deafening levels, they effectively said, “You refused to listen to us, now we refuse to listen to you.”

If Macron were alone in experiencing strong resistance to his leadership, it would be one thing. But he is not. As their approval ratings attest, other leaders in other democracies also don’t get much respect not to speak of love. 

• Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has an approval rating of 49%.
• American President Joe Biden has an approval rating of 42%.
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has an approval rating of 39%.
• Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has an approval rating of 34 %.
• Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has an approval rating of 33%.
• Japan’s Prime Minster Fumio Kishida has an approval rating of 31%.
• Macron brings up the rear with an approval rating of 25%.

Of course, there are in such matters some nuances. For example, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi enjoys an apparently splendid approval rating of 78%. But, while India claims to be a democracy, Freedom House ranks it as only “partly free.” Moreover, Modi has changed in recent years. He is increasingly known for using his country’s religious divisions for his own political gain, and for his increasing intolerance of any political opposition.    

French followers are an especially recalcitrant lot. But the fact is they have company. Followers in democracies everywhere make it difficult for leaders to lead. To a point this is good. To a point it’s the point of democracies – to give people, all people, a voice. But if the changes in culture and technology are so great that they make leaders weak, render them ineffectual or even impotent, that’s no good.

Over 400,000 American lives were lost in World War II – the greatest number of any war not fought on American soil. Still, no one now argues that against Chancellor Adolf Hitler President Franklin Roosevelt should have kept his powder dry. Leadership is not a luxury.      

Turns out that power and even the proximity to power can be intoxicating and, ultimately, addictive. Moreover, turns out that power and even the proximity to power account not only for the behavior of many leaders, but for that of many followers.

Yesterday I posted a piece titled “Leaders Who Dodder.” The point was that some cling to power or at least to positions of power long after they should have had the intelligence and grace to give it up. Though I didn’t name her in the post, the widely revered Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the quintessential example of such a leader. Precisely because she clung to power, her seat on the Supreme Court, too long, her replacement on the Court was named not by her political and judicial ally, President Barack Obama, but by her political and judicial nemesis, President Donald Trump.    

Why did Ginsburg insist on clinging to her position years after it was clear her health was in decline? Why did Senator Dianne Feinstein do the same? Why do others fall into the same trap? Why is it that, as Annie Karni writing in the New York Times put it, “History littered with lawmakers who have stayed around well past their primes?” * Karni’s answer is the attractions of power, and the perks of power are so great they make it very hard to give it up.

What is it about power that makes it so addictive? The feeling that you are important. The feeling that you are making a difference. The feeling that you can get others to do what you want them to do. The feeling that you are part of a group.  The feeling that you are acting on what you believe in. The feeling that your experience makes you smarter and better than any successor. The feeling that your power is your life.

Then there are the perks, the small but significant rewards that add up to a big difference. Recognition and admiration; private planes and good seats at good restaurants; a reserved parking place and speedy service; and a staff to smooth and soothe your way in life, to remove the wrinkles the rest of us are left ourselves to iron out.

What makes this list of incentives for leaders to keep leading especially interesting is that it precisely mirrors the list of incentives for followers to keep following. I am thinking especially of enablers – of followers who continue to follow leaders even when they are manifestly ineffective or unethical or both. When a senator such as the now servile Lindsey Graham follows a leader like Donald Trump – who previously he had denigrated and dismissed – Graham is not doing so because he’s lost his mind. He’s doing so because he has calculated that the benefits of staying close to Trump are greater than the costs. Put differently, the addiction to power is not just about being rewarded – who gets to play golf at Mar-a-Lago – it is also about being punished. About who gets distanced from power. In Graham’s case, though he has already served in the Senate for over twenty years, he is clearly plenty worried about losing his seat. Not only because of the advantages it bestows but because without it, he seems to fear he will be lost.    

Followers, as is common in these matters, are a knottier problem than leaders. What then to do at least about the leadership class? To ensure a leadership class that is not geriatric, to ensure that younger generations get to hold the levers of power alongside older ones. As I suggested in “Leaders Who Dodder” the matter is urgent. Because average life spans have dramatically increased, so will the number of leaders who are ailing or failing. Even now the average age of U.S. Senators is what used to be the age of retirement – 65.

Since power is addictive, we cannot count on leaders themselves to give it up. We must then take matters into our own hands. We must demand and eventually effect term limits. Limit the amount of time any leader – in business, for example, as in government – is permitted to hold a particular post. How long should this time be? How about 12 years? Long enough to have the benefit of experience; short enough to steer clear of getting sclerotic. In the U. S. Congress this would mean two terms for members of the Senate, and six terms for members of the House. You got a problem with that?

*https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/us/politics/dianne-feinstein-older-lawmakers-senate.html

For all the recent changes in demography, California remains America’s most populous state, by far. It is home to some 39 million people. (Next is Texas, with nearly 30 million.) But for all its great size, like the other 49 states it is allotted just two senators to represent it in Congress. Therefore, if only because of the position they hold, each of the state’s two senators is, or ought to be, a leader, someone who, literally, leads. Alex Padilla is one, having served in that role for two years. Dianne Feinstein is the other, having served in that role for over thirty years.

Feinstein is the longest-serving woman senator in American history. She also has a strong record as a legislator, as well as having been a role model for many of the women who followed her and learned from her how to navigate the Senate.

Now, alas, Feinstein has become a different sort of exemplar. An exemplar of a leader who couldn’t quit. Couldn’t quit while there was still time to do so with dignity. Couldn’t quit while there was still time to hand the reins of power to a successor with intelligence and grace. By virtually every account for Feinstein it’s now too late. She is now so frail and befuddled that she is incapable of making a good decision either for herself or her constituents. So, one of these days, in one way or another, the decision to leave the Senate will be made not by her but for her.

Still, at a time when people are living so much longer than they used to, the question of leaders who linger till they dodder is certain to become more pressing. It is not ageist to insist it’s an issue – it’s just common sense. Need I repeat that America’s next presidential race likely will be between an 80-year-old and a 76-year-old? Need I point out that the 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch just concluded what the Financial Times called an especially “calamitous year”? Need I remind that the Supreme Leader of a visibly ailing Iran, Ali Khamenei, is 84 years old and has held his vaulted position for almost 34 years?

Old leaders don’t necessarily die, and they don’t necessarily fade away. Sometimes they just go on, and on, and on.  The same applies to leaders who are not old but who for some reason are ailing or failing. Sometimes leaders of all ages hang in and hang on when the right thing to do would be for them to get out, to let someone replace them who is fit to do the job.

Situations such as these can of course be both delicate and difficult to resolve. During his 2022 senatorial campaign, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman was felled by a severe stroke, one that clearly limited him physically and, it appeared, cognitively. While he won nevertheless, soon after he took office the newly minted senator was hospitalized for six weeks for clinical depression. It’s possible, of course, that Fetterman will serve the remainder of his term in fine health. It’s also possible that questions about his well-being will remain.     

Clearly the issues I raise are sensitive. Moreover, the decisions they require are impossible to prescribe with precision. Still, it does none of us a favor to pretend that the matter of leaders’ health is other than of the utmost importance. And it does none of us a favor to pretend that leaders who dodder should indefinitely be left to chart their own course. Especially when it’s obvious they can no longer serve the followers to whom they promised, or even swore their allegiance.  

I have written repeatedly over the years about how differences between women and men impact the chronic issue of women and leadership. (“Chronic” in that the numbers of leaders who are women remains everywhere far below the number of leaders who are men.) Specifically, I have pointed out how women who are pregnant, and women who breastfeed, often change. They change physiologically and they change psychologically – which means they change in ways that affect them not only at home but at work.

Now there is evidence that these sorts of changes are not confined to women of childbearing age. They apply to women who are older – roughly between the ages of 45 and 60 – as well. A high percentatge suffer symptoms associated with menopause including but not limited to hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings. As a recent study conducted by the world-class Mayo Clinic concluded, “Menopausal symptoms … occur in more than 75% of women during the transition though menopause. Such symptoms can be frequent, protracted, refractory to management, distressing and incapacitating.”*

As a subject of discussion menopause is generally thought taboo. Women as well as men remain reluctant to attribute any intrusion on their capacity to perform, especially at work, based on changes that could be related to age. Still, the Mayo Clinic study is the largest of its kind – more than 4,000 women participated – ever conducted in the United States. It further found 1) that menopause costs American women an estimated $1.8 billion in lost working time per year; 2) that roughly 15% or respondants reported “adverse work outcomes” related to the affects of menopause; and 3) that women who reported the most severe symptoms were 16 times more likely to report negative consequences than those who reported the least severe symptoms.**

The Mayo Clinic study did not link the impact of symptoms of menopause to women who either do lead or aspire to lead. But it seems reasonable to conclude that who we are and how we feel, physically and mentally, affects not only what we do and how we do it, but what we want to do. I have long maintained that one of the many reasons women lead less often than men is because they are different. Physiologically and psychologically different. The new findings on menopause seem further to support this claim.

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*Karl A. Nath, In the Limelight: May 2023 – Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

**Also see this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/well/live/menopause-symptoms-work-women.html    

I reject the idea that I’ve been obsessed with Jamie Dimon. On the other hand, it’s obvious that I’ve occasionally focused on Jamie Dimon. As evidence I cite three of my short articles about the man who since 2005 has been chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase. (Links below.) The first goes back to 2008; the second was written in 2012; the third a decade later, in 2022.

https://hbr.org/2008/03/ask-jpmorgans-dimon-not-everyo

Lame Leader of the Week Award: Jamie Dimon

Leader Tenure Redux – the Case of Jamie Dimon

Given what happened in the last week, these pieces from my past don’t make me look good. Not only has Dimon not – despite earlier missteps and the extreme length of his tenure – failed or faltered, he has emerged as a hero. JPMorgan Chase’s purchase of the failed First Republic Bank has, for the moment at least, earned the gratitude of the U.S. government, of the banking industry, of markets at home and abroad, and implicitly if not explicitly of the American people who otherwise were threatened with a larger banking crisis.  

The moment of uncertainty has not passed. Who knows what will happen in the coming months? But for the time being Dimon is widely seen as a leader who is outstanding. As one of the great corporate leaders of our time.

A few headlines from recent days:

• Wall Street Journal: “Dimon Wins Again in Bank Deal.”
• New York Times: “JPMorgan, A Savior Once Again.”
• Financial Times: “All Roads Lead to JPMorgan.”

Since the financial crisis of 2008 this is the third time that Dimon has agreed to buy – in a federally backed transaction – an institution in crisis. (The first two were Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual.) In each case have been downsides. But in each case have been, certainly for JPMorgan Chase, significant upsides. Under Dimon’s leadership the bank has soared ahead of each of its competitors. It currently boasts $3.7 trillion in assets and 250,000 employees. In terms of assets, deposits, and market capitalization, it is now the largest bank in the United States by far. Chase has branches in 48 of the 50 states.  

None of this is to say the concerns that I earlier expressed are trivial or irrelevant. Dimon and his bank have made several serious missteps, some with consequences that linger. More importantly, despite Dimon’s presentation of his acquisition of First Republic as a public service, questions have already been raised about how big a behemoth his bank has been allowed to become. As progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren put it, “Jamie Dimon should never have been permitted to take over a failing bank because JPMorgan is already too big to fail.”

Withal, when I complained that Dimon was a leader too long in his post I was wrong. Whatever the general rule about the length of a leader’s tenure, there are exceptions. And, whatever the systemic implications of his most recent bite out of the apple, JPMorgan Chase shows not the slightest sign of being stopped or even slowed. To the contrary. The institution to which, and for which Dimon is responsible has never in its long, storied history been as strong.  

When French President Emmanuel Macron managed to bypass the National Assembly by getting the Constitutional Council to approve a law raising the legal retirement age in France from 62 to 64, he paid a heavy political price. After months of bitter protests and angry strikes in which hundreds of thousands participated, a large majority of French were bitterly opposed not only to the law itself, but to the man who had successfully pushed it through. Macron’s approval rating – never robust – sank this month to only about 20 percent, the lowest it had ever been.

Americans found it absurd the French should have clung so tenaciously, so furiously, to a retirement age that was completely at odds with how long we now live. So did fiscal experts who know for a fact that with our lifespans considerably longer now than they were a few generations back, it’s fiscally irresponsible not to raise the retirement age. No matter. The French felt that what most of us think of as early retirement was a right to which they were entitled.

Impossible to know how history will treat the incumbent French president. It’s conceivable he’ll be rated more highly in the future than he is in the present. What we do know though is this.

First, leading liberal democracies – especially in opposition to strong public opinion – has become exceedingly difficult. It’s the big difference between democracies and autocracies. Specifically, it’s much easier to lead the latter than the former.  It’s why when autocracies are “economically benevolent,” they can achieve economic transformation while weak democracies tend to stagnate.  

Second, Macron is in the second term of his presidency, which means he cannot run again. It seems, then, that he is willing to trade his popularity for his performance – because his popularity is a currency of diminishing value. He doesn’t have to worry as much now as he did earlier in his political career about fending off challenges, or about compromising for purposes that are tactical and practical.

To be clear. The next presidential election is not until 2027, which means that Macron will be president for four more years. So, he is not done trying to get things done. Still, he might have calculated that a major victory on the issue of France’s retirement age will, notwithstanding heavy short-term costs, reap long-term benefits. Whatever his thinking … his doing certainly took guts.

In the early 1960s Betty Friedan wrote the bible of the modern women’s movement, The Feminine Mystique. Her primary purpose was to urge women (especially educated women of a certain class) to realize what she deemed their full potential. How? By getting out of the home – escaping from the suffocating tediousness it implied – and into the workplace.

It would have been difficult for Friedan then to imagine that twenty years later, in her second major book The Second Stage, her argument would be entirely different. By the time it was published Friedan’s concern was not that women were doing too little, but that they were taking on too much.  That instead of freeing women, the “superwomanhood” of the 1980s had led to their double enslavement. Still at home and now, additionally, at work.

Since then, the word “superwoman” has come to be part of our lexicon. It’s usually applied to a Western woman who works exceedingly hard to manage and even excel at two apparently incompatible, tasks. The first is to succeed personally, which means running her home, from cooking and cleaning to childcare and elder care.  The second is to succeed professionally, which means advancing her career and bringing home some, most, or even all the bacon. Of course, some men now take on more of the domestic chores than they did a half century ago. But even in the United States women still do most of the housework and caregiving. And in most other countries the imbalance between what women and men are responsible for, specifically in the home, is much greater.     

The word “superwoman” is sometimes used admiringly, in admiration of a woman who appears to do it all well. And it’s sometimes used disparagingly, in disparagement of a woman who clings to the sadly and badly mistaken idea that it’s possible to do it all well.

The subject regularly comes up in conversations about women and leadership. Can a woman with a child, especially a young child, and especially with more than one child, and especially if she happens to be a single parent, simultaneously be a leader? If yes, what if anything does this say about her as a parent?

Which brings me to the exception that might or might not prove the rule – Ursula von der Leyen. She is one of the most powerful women leaders in the world. She is one of the most powerful leaders in the world – period.  

Von der Leyen has been president of the European Commission since 2019. During her tenure she has taken an essentially weak body consisting of a recalcitrant membership to forge the European Union (EU) into a relatively cohesive and forceful global actor. Notwithstanding the crises first of Covid and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and notwithstanding her own aloof and patently ambitious executive leadership, von der Leyen has replaced former German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Europe’s most effective single leader.  

To be clear, von der Leyen is not loved by her constituents. Nor is she destined ultimately to succeed in keeping Europe sufficiently united, able to sustain itself as something akin to a single voice. But she has already established the EU as a global actor with which the rest of the world has to reckon. As one member of the European parliament summarized her impact, “People used to ask what Europe’s phone number is. Now we know. She has given Europe a voice and a face.”

Oh, and did I mention that von der Leyen is a physician?

Oh, and did I mention that under Chancellor Merkel von der Leyen was German Defense Minister?

Oh, and did I mention that she and her husband, Heiko von der Leyen, have seven children?

President Vladimir Putin now presides over a country and culture of terror. I write “now” because he was not always intent on strangling every voice in oppositon. Not that he was ever a liberal democrat. But Putin during his early years in power was far less repressive and despotic than he is now – especially since the start of Putin’s War.

Two weeks ago, Russian authorities arrested and imprisoned a prominent American reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich. And twenty-four hours ago, a Russian court sentenced a prominent Russian dissident, Vladimir Kara-Murza, to twenty-five years in prison. For telling the truth as he saw it – specifically for criticizing Putin’s war against Ukraine – Kara-Murza was found guilty of treason. Immediately he was sentenced to the harshest punishment for opposing the government that Russia has imposed in decades.     

Like Alexei Navalny – Russia’s most prominent dissident – Kara-Murza has been not just imprisoned but poisoned. And like Navalny, Kara-Murza can be seen in one of several ways, As a fearless follower, or as a holy fool. As a leader who will in time be seen as ahead of his time, or as a misguided martyr who suffered was for nothing.

We cannot know how history will judge. What we can know though is this. That the only power Kara-Murza has is the power of his pen. That the only authority Kara-Murza has is his moral authority. He is, in other words, entirely devoid of either the power or the authority to determine his own fate. To be sure, because of his daring dissent he has important allies, such as the Washington Post, for whom he has been an occasional columnist. But Kara-Murza himself has no agency. For the moment he is the ultimate, consummate follower, completely at the mercy of his leader, President Putin.

Notwithstanding his devastating sentence, Kara-Murza continues to embrace the part he has chosen to play. “Not only do I not repent any of this,” he recently said, “I am proud of it.” And in the immediate wake of his sentencing his mantra remained the same: “My self-esteem has even risen. I realize that I have done everything right as a citizen and politician.”    

In my book, Followership, I identified five different types of followers, one of which was the Diehard. Here is how I defined the type:

Diehards are as their name implies – prepared to die if necessary for their cause, whether an individual, or an idea, or both. Diehards are deeply devoted to their leaders; or, in contrast, they are ready to remove them from their positions of power, authority, and influence by any means necessary. In either case, Diehards are defined by their dedication, including the willingness to risk life and limb. Being a Diehard is all-consuming. It is who you are. It determines what you do.   

Kara-Murza is the quintessential Diehard. If necessary, he will die hard for the cause in which he believes. If necessary, he will die hard trying to depose the man who for one year has controlled his every breath.