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“Chutzpah,” originally a Yiddish word and now part of the English language, usually suggests singular audacity, unmitigated gall. In this case no other word will do, for the leader to whom I refer recently displayed nothing so much as unmitigated, unadulterated chutzpah. He is the German-born Austrian businessman who leads Volkswagen.

Herbert Diess is Volkswagen’s chief executive officer and chairman of its management board. What did he do that was so outrageous? What did he do while President Vladimir Putin was promoting Ukrainian landgrabs and President Volodymyr Zelensky was railing against Russian atrocities? Diess had the temerity to say that in the interest of commerce the war should quickly be ended. “I think we should do the utmost to really stop this war and get back… to trying to open up the world again. I think we should not give up on open markets and free trade and I think we should not give up on negotiating and trying to settle,” opined Diess.

No surprise that his remarks drew this sharp retort from Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba: “The best strategy for major German business would be to fully sever business ties with Russia and then call on Russia to stop the war and return to diplomacy.” And no surprise that Diess’s remarks elicited this sardonic reply from Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany: “In Kyiv people would prefer the VW CEO to address President Putin personally, a man he knows well, and the man who has unleashed this war of destruction against Ukraine.”

On the face of it, what Diess said is not objectionable. All he did was to advocate a return to the negotiating table. But here five reasons why what he said and why him saying it were beyond the pale. First, his argument prioritized money and business over politics and principle. Second, his words were in direct opposition to the stand publicly taken both by NATO and the European Union. Third, the West has made clear that whatever the path to peace, it must be decided by Ukrainians, not by Germans or by anyone else. Fourth, Diess displayed a tin ear for timing. He spoke just as Putin reasserted on May 9, Russia’s Victory Day, that its troops were “fighting on their own land.” And, finally, most importantly, what Diess said was wildly inappropriate because all Russian rhetoric surrounding the war in Ukraine has been laced with the word “Nazis.”

When Putin invaded Ukraine in late February he said Russia would “strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.” This “denazification” has been Putin’s most persistent theme, despite no evidence whatsoever that Ukraine’s government is riddled with Nazis. And despite Zelensky himself being a Jew who lost close family during the Holocaust. Still Putin won’t let go. Last week he sent a congratulatory telegram to separatists in eastern Ukraine declaring they and the Russian military were “fighting shoulder to shoulder to liberate their homeland from Nazi filth.” And on May 9, in his ostensibly celebratory Victory Day speech, he reiterated there was “no place in the world for executioners, punishers, and Nazis.”

If Diess were an ordinary CEO astride an ordinary company his remarks would have been ill founded. But he is not. He himself has a checkered history – Diess was prosecuted for his role in Volkswagen’s manipulation of its diesel emissions – and the company he leads has an even much more checkered history.

Volkswagen was established in 1937 by the Nazis. Chancellor Adolf Hitler was deeply involved in Volkswagen from start, decreeing the company should create an inexpensive “people’s car,” capable of carrying two adults and three children. During the Second World War Volkswagen’s mission changed. The production of cars for civilians stopped, while the production of vehicles for the German military started. To increase output and meet its targets Volkswagen used some 15,000 slave laborers, all recruited from concentration camps.

No reason for Volkswagen in the present constantly to atone for its past. But – especially given Putin’s repeated use of Nazis imagery – good reason for Volkswagen in the present to mind its own business. As to Diess, perhaps he likes being a chutzpadik. But it does not become him.   

I wrote a book about enablers during the Trump administration in the year 2020, as Covid conquered America. Enablers are followers who allow or even encourage their leaders to engage in, and then to persist in behaviors that are destructive. The point might be obvious. But it’s nearly never made: that bad leaders depend absolutely on bad followers who enable bad leaders to do bad things.*

I could not know when the book was written – though I might have guessed – that once Donald Trump was out of office memoirs would appear, written by his enablers, justifying their enablement. Into this category falls one that just came out, Mark Esper’s, A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times.

Esper was, obviously, a leader. As Secretary of Defense, he led the federal government’s largest agency and the nation’s largest single employer. During his time in office Esper oversaw some 1.3 million active-duty service members, 750,000 civilian personnel, and well over 800,000 National Guard and Reserve service members.      

At the same time, as is the case with many leaders, Esper was also a follower. He reported to President Trump and generally was subservient to him. Mostly he did what Trump told him to do, no matter how ill-advised, wrong-headed, or even downright dangerous.

But, as Esper is clearly eager to point out, he did not always do what Trump told him to do. Moreover, Esper believes that by staying in the administration as long he could – the president “terminated” him in late 2020 – he did the right thing. Esper thinks it was his patriotic duty to preclude the president (for as long as he could) from appointing a replacement who was more pliable. A replacement who would acquiesce to Trump’s every mood and obey his every order.

Esper describes the dilemma he faced – does someone like him, who believed Trump a national threat, remain in his post or resign in protest? – as the “existential question of the Trump administration.”  Why, Esper asked, “did good people [like him] stay even after the president suggested or pressed us to do things that were reckless, or foolish, or just plan wrong?” Esper claims that quitting would have made him feel “good in the moment” – but that it would have been wrong.

The former Secretary of Defense seems a well-intentioned man trapped of his own volition between a rock and a hard place. I in any case strongly disagree with the decision he made. Enablers like Esper imagine themselves lone wolves. He imagines himself the only member of the Trump administration to resign in protest.

But what if over the four years of Trump’s term would have been repeated resignations, resignations over and then over again, by people in high places? What if many or even several members of Trump’s team would have resigned and then stated why – loudly, clearly, and publicly so every American could hear?

To be an American patriot is never to follow an American president who is, simultaneously, unethical and incompetent. But so long as apparently good men like Mark Esper continue to make bad choices so long will bad leaders continue to do bad things.     

*The Enablers: How Team Trump Flunked the Pandemic and Failed America (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

For reasons I cannot explain, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg retains her iconic status. Liberals generally, women especially, persist in putting her on a pedestal, as if she did no wrong. This need to enshrine her was in evidence before her death, and it continues still.  

RBG, as she was widely known, is justly celebrated for her many accomplishments. She was a pioneering feminist and champion of equality long before she was appointed to the Supreme Court, and she was chief architect of a legal campaign against sex-role stereotyping. For her many achievements as a litigator, she was considered the Thurgood Marshall of the women’s rights movement.

Ginsburg did, however, have a problem evidenced long before she died in 2000, age 87, while still on the Court. Her problem was she refused to resign. She refused to resign though she was effectively asked to resign, and she refused to resign though her health was poor not just toward the end of her life but for two decades before.  

In 1999 Ginsburg was diagnosed with colon cancer. In 2009 she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In 2014 she had a stent put into her right coronary artery. In 2018 she had a cancerous lesion on her lung. In 2019 she fractured three ribs – and her pancreatic cancer recurred. Of course, by then it was too late. By then she had no choice but to hang in and hang on, in the desperate but futile hope that she would outlast the presidency of Donald J. Trump. Obviously the very last thing the staunchly liberal Justice wanted was for Trump to name her replacement – which is exactly what happened.

It was kept quiet at the time. But since then it’s been reported that in July 2013, then President Barack Obama invited RBG to have lunch at the White House, in his private dining room. The purpose of the lunch was politely to probe Ginsburg, to explore whether she might be amenable to retiring. (By then she was, at age 80, already the Court’s oldest member, and a two-time cancer patient.) RBG was not. RBG was not in the least amenable to retiring. Not only did she not take Obama’s hint, she gave him the distinct impression that her intention was to continue to sit on the court, indefinitely.      

Though it was not much discussed, it was clear even at the time that by clinging to her job Ginsburg was taking a risk. The risk that the Republicans would retake the Senate in 2014. (They did.) The risk that the Republicans would retake the White House in 2016. (They did.) And the risk that she would die while the Republicans controlled both the Senate and the White House. (She did.) Hence Trump’s appointment not long after she died of staunch conservative Amy Coney Barrett to fill Ginsburg’s seat.

Which brings us to one of the great ironies of recent American history: that one of the most important legacies of one of our most important feminists will be that Roe vs. Wade, which gave American women the right to have an abortion, is overturned.

But here’s the thing. In 2013 and 2014, around the time of Ginsburg’s lunch with Obama, it was not just the president but also friends, acquaintances, and former clerks who believed she should resign. They further thought that her refusal to do so was “terribly self-centered.” Trouble was that hardly anyone dared say so out loud, certainly not to her face. As former New York Times writer, Dorothy Samuels, put it, “I was struck that normally forceful advocates I spoke with would not express their dismay on the record while she was alive.”    

In the end, then, to worship Ruth Bader Ginsburg was to enable Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Sad. Sad when people cling to power long after they should have surrendered it. Sadder still when no one has the guts to tell them to get out when they can do so with their dignity, and their legacy, still in tact.

The New York Times recently published a very long – it’ll surely be a book – two-part article about Tucker Carlson. Carlson has been, of course, a fixture of the American media for years. He’s already rich and famous, known both for the extremity of his views and his outsized audience. In consequence, as the author of the Times piece, Nicholas Confessore, testifies, from the prominence of his prime-time perch at Fox News Carlson has amassed considerable power and even more influence.

For those among us who happen not to concur with his strongly held right-wing views Carlson is, then, a leader to be feared. From the evidence of his already astonishing success, and what could well be, despite the predicable denials, his vaulting ambition, it is easily imagined that someday not far into the future Carlson could have not only outsized power and influence but, additionally, outsized authority. The kind of authority that is bestowed by holding high office – say, for example, the American presidency.

Reasons for people like me to fear Carlson include:

• The level of his success.

Tucker Carlson is single most watched individual on America’s single most watched cable network. His impact on the American psyche is immense, incalculable.

• The level of his ambition.

Carlson goes to great pains to conceal his zeal to succeed. He lives in rural Maine, far from the madding crowd. And he denies aspiring to political office. However, his willingness to bend to the prevailing wind suggests a man who might yet have other fish to fry. This is a man who has strayed far from where he was not long ago, a conservative to be sure, but a mainstream conservative who seemed to take pleasure in mocking those to his right. Now no one is no more vocal and voluble a defender of those who stormed America’s Capitol on January 6, 2021, than Tucker Carlson.

• The level of his autonomy.

Carlson answers to no one. The owner of Fox, Rupert Murdoch, leaves him alone so long as their political views are synchronous – and Carlson brings home the bacon. For her part, Suzanne Scott, Fox’s chief executive officer, is clearly no dummy. She’s canny enough to keep hands off her most prized commodity.   

• The content of his rhetoric.    

Carlson’s extended and extensive commentaries are loathsome to many Americans. But Carlson’s extended and extensive commentaries are not loathsome to many other Americans. Quite the contrary. What Confessore describes as the “most racist show in the history of cable news,” is precisely what appeals to much if not most of Fox’s audience. The firehose of fear mongering issuing from Carlson’s mouth is all about America under siege. An America beset and beleaguered by protesters who are criminals and traitors, by immigrants who are dirty and diseased, and by unnamed, unmitigated elites who profit at the expense of the working class, especially white males.

• The implications of his rhetoric.

The specifics of what Carlson says add up to a general world view, a weltanschauung reminiscent of nothing so much as fascism. A fascism consisting of racism, nationalism, populism, and isolationism. A fascism implying autocracy not democracy.  A fascism that sometimes is fact, other times is fiction. Fascism that is Trumpism – whether Trump is or is not at the top.

• The style of his rhetoric.

Carlson is not mealy-mouthed. To the contrary, he is a loudmouth: fiery and fearsome, intent, and intense, as relentlessly persistent as he is apparently paranoid. He is the total opposite of news anchors of old who, the more moderate and temperate they were, the better. Who prided themselves on nothing so much as their objectivity and neutrality, who considered it their job to bring Americans together rather than to drive them apart. Not so long ago Carlson had guests on his show who disagreed with him. Now nearly never. Now his show is an echo chamber.      

• The nature of his followers.

Think of Carlson as a performer who wants nothing so much as to please his audience. Of itself, this is no indictment. Everyone who gets before a group wants to win it over. The question is what are we willing to do to have that happen? In Carlson’s case the answer has been to pander to members of his audience, to satisfy their appetites so before long they come back for more. Carlson has hit on his magic elixir – it is to wed his anger to his passion. So now it’s his stock in trade. He divides people into “us” and “them” – into “us” versus “them” – us being the innocent defenders, them the virulent attackers.

• The nature of his context.
• The times in which we live are fractured and fractious at home – and fractured and fractious abroad. There is no respite from conflict nationally, and conflagration internationally. All this is grist for Carlson’s mill. He thrives on that which divides us at the national level – high on the list are integration and immigration. And he thrives on what divides us the international level – high on the list are Russia and its president, Vladmir Putin, and Hungary and its Prime Minister. Viktor Orban. Finally, Carlson has brilliantly played the hand he was dealt, Donald Trump the man and Trumpism the movement. He has lashed himself to the latter but, cannily, cleverly, not so much to the former.  

It’s precisely this canniness and cleverness – his ability, as Confessore perfectly put it, to “alchemize media power into political influence” – that make me nervous.

Perhaps I’m being premature. But as it looks now, Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, is nothing so much as a leader to be pitied. He has presided over the United States Supreme Court during a time of its possibly, if not probably, irreversible decline.

Of course, no one, save those intimately familiar with the court’s proceedings, can know how effective Roberts is in dealing with the court’s eight other justices. After all, he has no power over them, scant authority and, clearly, precious little influence.  What we can know though is that Roberts is an unwilling if not also unwitting victim of the times in which we live.

Why so dramatic a word as “victim”? Because if Roberts is known for being anything it is as an institutionalist. An institutionalist who, from his perch as Chief Justice, has wanted nothing so much as to protect the Supreme Court – protect its reputation, and such as remained of its dignity and legitimacy, from the slime that now sullies much of America’s political landscape.

But it was not to be. From the start Roberts was forced to fight an uphill battle, presiding over the Court during a time in which every American institution, without a single exception, has suffered from diminished levels of respect, and of trust. Though for years the Supreme Court remained somewhat exempt from this pernicious trend – its levels of approval remained higher longer than its institutional counterparts both inside and out of government – it has not been able to resist it altogether. For years it too declined in the nation’s esteem. But after this week’s debacle, its status in what historically was its place in America’s pantheon is likely to be greatly, and permanently, reduced. Roberts’s best efforts notwithstanding, what has happened in the last seven days could be the institutional equivalent of a coup de grace.

The Court this week sustained not one but two bad blows. The two are related, but separate and distinct. The first is the opinion itself. The earthshaking opinion that is nearly certain before the end of June to overturn Roe v. Wade, which for approximately a half century gave women the legal right to obtain an abortion. The second bad blow is of course the leak. The leak of the draft opinion on abortion that violated not only the court’s tradition but its decorum – both of which are of maximal importance to the Chief Justice.   

To Roberts the unprecedented leak likely is even worse than the extremity of the (preliminary) opinion. For it implies disarray, and disorder. The leak implies a court that for the indefinite future is destined to be irreparably divided – as polarized and politicized as the rest of America. It also implies a leader who, while without fail is cordial and courteous, is not especially competent.  Sad fact is any reasonably well-intentioned leader unable even to keep his own house in order is less to be envied than pitied.    

In the last few weeks, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, got a lot of attention. In large part because of the war in Ukraine, the concomitant revival of NATO, and the resurgence, thanks to Ukrainians, of liberal values, the stakes in the recent French elections were high. The French were seen as having a momentous choice: between the center on the one hand, and the right on the other. (It was assumed the left, though not the far left, would opt for Macron over his opponent, Marine Le Pen.)  

In a perfect world it would never have come to this – the French presidential election too close comfortably to call. Macron, the forever clever one-time boy-wonder, should all along have been well ahead of the once rabid rightest, Le Pen.

By all accounts Macron was competent and, in many ways, successful, with an impressive list of accomplishments to his credit. Moreover, particularly as it pertained to Europe, he was a visionary in the French tradition. He unabashedly pushed for a strong Europe, spending a good deal of his political capital trying to unify disparate countries and cultures in a context that was largely inhospitable. Well, it was inhospitable until late February, when Russia’s president decided to invade Ukraine. When almost overnight nations from Germany to Poland, Sweden to Finland, rethought their European identities.

Still, as befits the smartest kid in the room, Macron lifelong has been seen as something of a snob, an elitist who was not only poor at working a room and playing to a crowd but didn’t much care. For the entirety of his term the French president has been seen as arrogant and remote, and as not much, if at all, interested in the day-to-day travails of the lower and working classes.

There is in addition the context in which Macron has led France for the last five years. Within France the electorate is badly divided or, arguably worse, alienated. Macron won the election – but with the lowest share of registered voters of any candidate since 1969. Further, until Ukraine was perpetual talk of “the crisis of liberal democracy,” in which, with rare exceptions, leaders of democracies have found it difficult to govern, and in which democracy itself has been more characterized by contentiousness than compromise. Finally, within Europe has been a shift to the right evident not only in France but in the East, where countries such as Poland and Hungary, both members of NATO and the European Union, have been led by men as autocratic as democratic.

But … things change. In this case two Big Things.

First, though a leopard can’t change his spots, there is evidence that Macron has been chastened. Chastened by his people – and chastened by an election that was uncomfortably uncertain. If he hasn’t learned a lesson – learned that he’d better pay his constituents more attention – he’s dumber than we thought.

Second, are the contexts. They have changed. France has been changed by Covid and by the first war on European soil in 75 years. Europe has been changed by having bet so heavily on the wrong horse – the Germans especially, who now look like idiots for having presumed Vladimir Putin a reliable partner on oil and gas. And the global order has changed. Americans are now clearly leading the charge against Russia, wanting explicitly permanently to weaken it. And China is being hobbled by fear of Covid, while that friendly agreement between China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Putin, signed just a few months ago, is now hardly worth the paper it was written on.

As I write the strongest European leader by far is the President of France. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is still wet behind the ears, scurrying to find his footing after succeeding the formidable Angela Merkel.  And the prime minister of England is not only sullied by, among other things, Partygate, he presides over a nation that after Brexit is no longer, not formally at least, a member of the European club.     

So, there you have it. If you’re at all interested in the future of Europe – as essential to the world order as to liberal democracy – France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, is the leader to keep your eye on.  

I’ve never counted. But seems to me the question I’ve been asked most frequently over the years is the one above. For a long time now my answer has been the same – “both.”

The leadership industry would have you believe that leaders are made. Everywhere it implies buy my book, take my course, attend my workshop, enroll in my program, come to my center, pay me to coach you, consult with you, teach you and preach to you and you too can be a leader. All of which might or might not be true – but only up to a point. Up to a point you can make of a sow’s ear a silk purse. But you can succeed in metamorphosing raw material only if you have something as opposed to nothing to work with.

It’s like anything else. You can learn how to be a better swimmer or a better piano player than you are. But you can only learn how to be a great swimmer or a great piano player if you have raw natural talent which, then, over time, is honed and sharpened.  Similarly, if Martin Luther King, Jr. ever took a leadership course I haven’t heard about it.

Some people are naturals at being a leader – just like some people are naturals at being anything else. This thought came to mind recently when I read an article about Hadas Fruchter, the pioneering Orthodox Jew who, at age 32, became the first Modern Orthodox woman anywhere to start and lead her own house of worship. (In Philadelphia, in 2019.)

Rabbinat Fruchter was described as a “natural leader.” What was meant by that? That she was the kind of student who was “all over the high school yearbook.” That she was president of her senior class. That she had the lead in school plays. That she was director of the girls’ choir. And that not many years later she was nothing less than a pathbreaker. Notwithstanding her Orthodoxy, she sought to be ordinated. She sought to be ordinated when Orthodox women were not permitted to do so.

When she was still a rabbinical student, Hadas Fruchter’s sermons and teachings were so impressive that she acquired a mentor. Originally, he brought her on as an intern, later she became an assistant spiritual leader. She was on her way to becoming a singular leader in the world of Orthodox Judaism.  

The evidence is that Rabbinat Fruchter was a natural. She was a leader in her girlhood. She is a leader in her adulthood. As a result of her seasoning Rabbinet Frucher is probably better at being a leader in her thirties than she was in her teens. Still, from the evidence we have, her talent for leadership was apparent from an early age. Not because her parents or teachers groomed her to be a leader. But because her gift for leadership was inborn.           

On November 23, 2018, I posted to this site a long piece titled, “Fiasco at Facebook.” (The link is below.) It was a systemic analysis (leaders, followers, and contexts) of how and why the once-fabled company had run into trouble. Since then, Facebook, recently renamed Meta, has, of course, in many ways performed brilliantly. What I was writing about though was not its business metrics, but its moral metrics. The company had already deviated from its original mission which was nothing if not high-minded: To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Moreover, in 2017, the company’s original mission was updated. This time it read in part: To  give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.   

In this crusade founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was joined early on by a woman whose title at Meta has long been chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg. What’s arguably most notable about Sandberg is that for years she was, in addition to her prominence as a corporate leader, a feminist icon.

In 2013 she came out with a book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, that instantly hit a nerve, and became a best seller. In subsequent years she capitalized on her feminist fame to expand on her franchise by, among other things, starting an international network of women. Leanin.org, as it was called, described itself as a “global community dedicated to helping women achieve their ambitions.” Since then, in the wake of the unexpected death of her husband, she (co) authored another book, this one titled, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy.  It too sold millions of copies, though it never rivaled its predecessor, nor was it especially embraced by women whose main interest was in advancing themselves in the world of work.

It would appear that Sandberg since has lost interest in feminism as a personal and professional cause. She remains deeply entrenched at Meta. The company has profited hugely from trafficking in misinformation. And Sandberg has long since become a billionaire. But not much out of her mouth about women and “the will to lead.”

All this comes to mind because in the last couple of days Sandberg hit the headlines in a way distinctly unsavory. It was reported that in both 2016 and 2019 she pressured the British Daily Mail to kill unflattering stories about her then boyfriend, Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. According to the Wall Street Journal, she seems to have succeeded in her efforts because both times the stories never ran.

The irony is obvious: the story Sandberg allegedly sought to stop was about a temporary restraining order against Kotick by a former girlfriend. In other words, the woman with a reputation as an advocate for women long had a man in her life accused of attacking a woman.

Meta is reportedly looking into the allegations and deciding if Sandberg violated company rules. But whatever the company’s verdict, it’s not a good look for a onetime, sometime, feminist icon.  

Fiasco at Facebook – A Systemic Analysis

I’ve written before about leaders clinging to power – all too often long after their sell-by date has expired.* Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan, is a case in point. He is now 66 years old. He has not always been in the best of health (throat cancer, last year emergency heart surgery). He’s been top dog at JPMorgan since 2006 – some 16 years. And, since 2007, he’s also boasted the title of chairman of the board.

First question: Why then is he still in a position of what in the world of banking is unrivalled power?

Answers: He wants to be. He remains good at what he does. His board has zero incentive directly to take him on. His shareholders are satisfied with his performance or, maybe better, satisfied enough. And there’s no statute of limitations on leaders who insist on continuing to lead.

Second question: What then is the problem? If a long-term leader like Dimon continues to perform well, and if his followers, including shareholders, are fine with it, why stir the pot? Why not leave Dimon alone on his throne?  

Answers: Though there are some exceptions to the general rule: leaders deteriorate over time. They get addicted to power; they get sclerotic; they get protected against dissention; they lose touch; they get rigid; they get self-aggrandizing; and far, far too often they get excessively rich. They become in a bubble of their own creation.

There should therefore be a norm: most leaders should be required to surrender their positions of power after a decade in power. They should be required to make way for new blood. This norm should apply across the board. To leaders in the public sector as well as the private one, to leaders in education, in religion, and in the military.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has served as senator from the state of Kentucky since 1985 – some 37 years. Think he’s past due to get up and get out? He clearly does not. He will not quit. He will not pick up his marbles and go home.

Times have changed a lot in the last decade, two decades, three decades. One of these is that people live longer. Dimon at 66 probably perceives himself a spring chicken!

Still, notwithstanding Dimon’s standing, are signs his subjects are getting a bit restless. First, investors generally are increasingly demanding that the chair and CEO roles be split. Second, in the case of JPMorgan specifically, a recent securities filing submitted by the bank said that a “substantial majority” of its investors wanted Dimon to stay as non-executive chair when he steps down as chief executive. The implication is that while Dimon will long into the future continue to chair the board, he will not so long into the future consent to step down as chief executive officer.

In 2018 Jamie Dimon was asked when he would retire. He replied in five years. In 2020 Jamie Dimon was asked when he would retire. He replied in five years. In 2021 Jamie Dimon as asked when he would retire. He replied in five years. By now a joke? Maybe. But not one I find funny.

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*https://barbarakellerman.com/leader-tenure/  

See if you agree with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. He, as you will see, argues, strenuously, yes.

Note: If you cannot read the text of the article here, you can google it under the title, “Why
We Admire Zelensky.”