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OK, the damn dam finally broke. In the last week, a torrent of accusations has submerged movie mogul Harvey Weinstein who, it seems, has been getting away with sexual harassment and, possibly, sexual assault for years.

What gives? How is it possible that this man was permitted to go on his wicked way for so long? His wrongdoing was, we now know, an open secret. Lots of people knew he was a repeat offender – lots and lots of people, not only the women who were his victims. Yet neither they, nor the countless others in the know about Harvey went public with their story. Instead they shut up – as if hypnotized by Harvey. Hypnotized by his power and hypnotized by his money.

Why? Why were so many so complicit for so long? More particularly, why were the women who he in some way attacked effectively silent until now? An article in today’s New York Times answered the question this way: “More established actresses were fearful of speaking out because they had work; less established ones were scared because they did not.”

What the hell kind of an excuse is that?! OK, I’ll buy the line about “less established actresses.” But why would someone with some measure of success stay silent? Why was it that only when multitudes came forth did individuals finally speak up?

There are of course several reasons – one of which is breathtakingly simple: While we’re big on teaching good leadership, real big, we’re nowhere on teaching good followership. Teaching people how to speak truth to power. Teaching people how to step up when there’s a wrong to be righted. Teaching people how not to be cowed – not even by those apparently mightier than they.

A 2016 study in the Harvard Business Review suggested several solutions to the problem of sexual harassment, including making people aware of the problem; teaching them that when there’s a problem they should step in; and telling them how exactly they might effectively intervene.

This is not exactly rocket science. But if women want to empower themselves they, we, must stop making excuses. We must be bolder and braver in the future than we have been in the past.

Gwyneth Paltrow has finally, years later, admitted to being harassed by Harvey Weinstein. Her excuse for staying silent for more than two decades? “I was a kid. I was signed up. I was petrified. I thought he was going to fire me.”  Bull! First, she was not “a kid.” She was 22 years old. Second, she had all the resources in the world to back her up, should she have stepped up. Her mother is the renowned establishment actress, Blythe Danner. And her father was Bruce Paltrow, highly successful in his own right as a director and producer. Would Gwyneth have had to eat dirt if she had told on Harvey? Hardly!

So let’s get real here. This stuff persists because we permit it to persist. If we, we women, want our victimization to end, it’s up to us to end it. The days of the proverbial casting couch have long been over. The time is now for us to put our money where our mouths are!

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel tries to cobble together a governing coalition after losing votes in the recent election, especially to the far right. To govern reasonably effectively, her Christian Democrats will have to form a new coalition, a “Jamaica” coalition, with both the Free Democrats and the Greens.
• Myanmar’s preeminent leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, continues to be humiliated by the humanitarian crisis involving over a half million Rohingya forced to flee to Bangladesh. Manifestly Myanmar’s military is a power Myanmar’s leader is unable to control.
• Britain’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, struggles to maintain a semblance of dignity – and of power and influence. Brexit talks have gone no place. May’s cabinet, and her party (the Conservatives), war among themselves. Her performance at the Conservatives just ended conference was said to be “calamitous.” (Alas, a mortifying coughing fit during one of her important speeches did not help.) And she was forced to face down a coup attempt by some 30 plus members of her own party. A “nightmare” week indeed!

I draw no conclusion from this enumeration. But what does seem clear is that leadership is an equal opportunity exercise. That female leaders are treated just like male leaders – subjected to insults and injuries on a regular basis.

In ordinary times we want and expect the president to lead. And we want and expect others – at least most others most of the time – to follow. But, these are not ordinary times.  These times are so extraordinary that many Americans want nothing so much as for the president not to lead, but to follow.

President Donald Trump has regularly been compared to a child who needs to be managed, controlled, harnessed, reined in. Who needs above all to have adult supervision. Whether Trump is akin to a “malevolent toddler” – a term invoked by some of his staff – is open to debate. Still, few would quarrel with the claim that the nation’s chief executive does not regularly or reliably act like a grown-up. As James Mann points out, he “lies, taunts, insults, bullies, rages, seeks vengeance, exalts violence, boasts, refuses to accept criticism” – all in ways that most parents seek to prevent in their children.*

In consequence of the president’s emotional immaturity and, or, temperamental instability, many Americans have consoled themselves with the thought that there are, after all, adults in the room.  Adults who can and should do what good parents do: manage, control, harness, and rein in their children, especially if their children are errant. To put it in my parlance, Mom and Dad are expected to be leaders and toddlers to be followers.

The adults in this case are presumed James Mattis, Secretary of Defense; Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State; H. R. McMaster, National Security Advisor; and John Kelly, White House Chief of Staff. Which raises the question of what happens when these four men fail to be able to lead their man-child. When they fail to be able to execute the role reversal on which most of the nation has come to depend. When they fail to be able, that is, to exercise leadership. And when they fail equally to be able to get Trump to follow, to conform to the parameters of the presidential office.

For those of us with an interest in taming and tempering our volatile president, it’s been a bad week.

• Mattis publicly stated his view that the US should continue to adhere to its nuclear deal with Iran. No dice. The president made clear he would support an alternate strategy, one that will deviate  at least somewhat from the agreement reached by his predecessor.  So much for Mattis’s sway.
• Tillerson, though given the chance, chose not to deny that he had called the president a bleeping “moron.” Most superiors are not fond of being called bleeping “morons” by their subordinates. So, we might reasonably presume that Tillerson is not long for his post. No big deal though, as the president was undercutting his Secretary of State well before the moron mess. Remember Trump declaring that Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with the North Koreans?
• McMaster has survived internecine battles with, among others, hand-to-hand combatant Steve Bannon (since gone from the White House). Still, McMaster remains a favorite target of right-wingers, obliged to keep his head down while the president hurls high-risk insults at Little Rocket Man.
• Kelly tries his damnedest to keep his charge in line. But, it’s hard. Come to think of it, it’s impossible. This is not to question Kelly’s competence, or to suggest that this still relatively new chief of staff has made no difference at all. It’s become clear though that Kelly has been unable to prevent the president from saying stupid stuff, from behaving idiotically at inopportune moments, or even from inciting anger and divisiveness when what’s called for is comity and community.

It pains me to write this, but whatever our hopes for the adults in the room, they have been, not wholly, but largely, dashed. For now, the emotionally immature and temperamentally unstable American president continues mostly to lead, while the grown-ups continue mostly to follow.

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*http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/10/26/trump-adult-supervision/

The president of France, Emanuel Macron, and the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, would like nothing so much as to see Europe solidify. Becomes more unified over the next ten years, not less.

Similarly, the prime minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, would like nothing so much as to see Spain solidify. Specifically, to rid itself of Catalonian separatism, so that Spain becomes more unified over the next ten years, not less.

But it’s not clear that anyone of these the leaders will be able to keep their followers in line. The immediate problem is Rajoy’s. Though most Americans cannot conceive of such a thing, yesterday’s Catalonian referendum, which the central government in Madrid did everything it could to stop, including using force, confirmed that separatist sentiment was strong. Despite the chaos surrounding the proceedings, some 42% of Catalonians managed to cast their ballots – and of these fully 90% voted for independence.

The immediate outcome of the referendum is a constitutional crisis. On the morning after the night before no one can say with certainty what will happen next in the struggle between Madrid (capital of Spain) on the one hand, and Barcelona (capital of Catalonia) on the other. Again, similarly, on the morning after the night before no one can say with certainty what will happen next in the struggle between leaders loyal to Brussels (headquarters of the European Union) on the one hand, and followers loyal to various isms on the other – isms such as separatism, nationalism, and populism.

But make no mistake about it. Spain, while no match for France or Germany, is one of Europe’s powerhouses. If it falters, so does the European Union. And, if it falters, so does liberal democracy.

• Tom Price, former Secretary of Health and Human Services, forced to resign.
• Richard Price, former CEO of Equifax, forced to resign.
• Norman Pelz, super shareholder activist, about to muscle his way onto P&G, Board despite opposition from majority of Board and P&G CEO.
• Wolfgang Hatz, former top executive at Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche, arrested.
• Conflict and chaos in Catalonia.
• Mayor of San Juan takes on the American president – Puerto Rico is decidedly not, she charges, a “good news story.”
• American president takes on mayor of San Juan – attacks her for “poor leadership.”
• Supernova Lin Manuel Miranda tweets the American president will go “straight to hell.”
• Portrait of Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Myanmar’s putative leader, Aung Sau Suu Kyi, removed from the hallowed halls of Oxford University.

She hovers. He haunts. Angela Merkel has secured a remarkable fourth term as German Chancellor. Adolf Hitler has secured a remarkable return to German political discourse.

I do not draw a precise parallel between the present far-right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and the past far-right party, the Nazi party. But in this weekend’s German elections, the overtly nationalist, populist, xenophobic AfD, which until recently was marginal, achieved a significant victory. It secured 13 percent of the vote, guaranteeing it representation in parliament and a political platform to be reckoned with.

No sense exaggerating the importance of this. Voters in other European countries have made the same right turn, as have voters in the US. Still, this is the first time a far-right party has been represented in the German parliament in more than 60 years. Given Germany’s not-so-very- distant history this is an outcome of consequence.

Angela Merkel is assured her place in history. She has been and remains a remarkably effective leader in Germany, and in Europe more generally. Moreover, her even temper and stable temperament are badly needed counterweights not only given Germany’s past, but given the problematic present, in which follower’s attraction to half-cocked strongman leaders remains very much in evidence.

It is not too much to say that moderate Merkel represents the better angels of our nature, whereas the AfD pulls in extremists attracted by apparently simple solutions to complex problems. In the wake of the results of the election, one AfD leader told the party faithful that he was “absolutely euphoric.” Claimed another, “We did it…. We will change Germany!”

Again, no sense exaggerating the importance of this. But given where liberal democracy is in the first quarter of the 21st century, and given where Germany was in the second quarter of the 20th, attention must be paid.

I HAVE NEVER REPEATED A BLOG – POSTED A BLOG I WROTE IN THE PAST AGAIN IN THE PRESENT. BUT… TO EVERY RULE THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. TODAY IS ONE. AFTER THIS WEEKEND, DURING WHICH PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP WENT OFF HALF-COCKED AGAINST “LITTLE ROCKET MAN,” AND GRATUITOUSLY TOOK ON A LARGE FRACTION OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, THE FOLLOWING BLOG, ORIGINALLY POSTED ON AUGUST 12, BEARS REPEATING. YES, BOBBY, RUN!

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Run, Bobby, Run!

In recent days Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg both made statements addressing the company’s current public relations crisis. The differences between them are striking.

Zuckerberg was all business. After an initial, perfunctory tip of his hat to his family, he went on to describe what Facebook would do to stop or at least slow its technology from being used by nefarious people for nefarious purposes. He assured us that he “cares deeply about the democratic process and protecting its integrity.” And he did what a CEO should do – what he could in the moment to protect his brand. In the end, though, his statement was bland, bloodless.   Passion about “the democratic process” was lacking, as was palpable remorse about what had gone wrong.

Sandberg’s statement was, on the other hand, much more deeply personal, and much more prepared to take responsibility. Her statement was brighter, bolder and in important ways better.

Two points of note:

First, Sandberg told us who she was. She was writing she said, “as a Jew, as a mother, and as a human being.” Easy enough to admit to being a human being. Easy enough to admit to being a mother. Not so easy to admit, as it were,  that she was a Jew. Zuckerberg is also a Jew. His failure to mention same does not make him a bad person. But her readiness to so testify assumes special resonance as well as importance in a context in which outbreaks of anti-Semitism have risen sharply.

Second, Sandberg took responsibility. She took responsibility for Facebook’s sloppiness, for its casual attitude toward posting hateful language which, she admitted, was “a fail on our part.” Similarly, she took responsibility for Facebook’s laxness in policing its own technology. Facebook, she admitted, did not discover various egregious offenses until others brought them to the company’s attention. Nor did it even, to its everlasting embarrassment, prepare for the dark side.  “We never intended or anticipated this functionality being used this way – and that is on us. And we did not find it ourselves – and that is also on us.”

Sandberg’s iconic if controversial contribution to the national conversation was her 2013 quasi feminist tract, Lean In. Her argument struck a chord with numberless women who needed and, it turned out, wanted to be prodded to be assertive. With her post on how Facebook would face the current fiasco she did herself credit. She practiced what she preached. She leaned in.

Leadership is defined in countless different ways.  Accordingly, there is no widely accepted definition of what leadership is.

The leadership industry, however, equates leadership with something or someone who mostly is good.  Leadership expert Warren Bennis, for example, wrote that “managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.” Somewhat similarly, leadership scholar James MacGregor Burns distinguished a leader from a “power wielder.” “Power wielders,” Burns wrote, “may treat people as things. Leaders may not.” In other words, leaders lead with their followers in mind. They lead to satisfy the motives of their followers.

What, then, are we to make of someone like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un?

• He embarked on North Korea’s “most violent Party purge in decades.”*
• He executed two of his father’s seven senior pall bearers.
• He arranged for the assassination of his estranged half-brother.
• He threatens the lives and family members of anyone who in any way opposes him.
• He demands a cult of personality which guarantees that he and he alone – along with his dead father and grandfather – is venerated.
• He is in total control of everyone and everything North Korean.
• He impacts American foreign policy to a degree entirely out of proportion with the hermetic, undeveloped country of which he is the head.
• He has developed a nuclear arsenal with which he regularly threatens each of his neighbors and the world’s leading military power.

It’s true: Kim Jong Un does not “do the right thing.” It’s true: Kim Jong Un does not lead to “satisfy the motives” of his followers. But is he not, as we generally and sensibly, if somewhat loosely and informally, define the word, a “leader”?

The question is not simply a semantic one. It is of the utmost practical consequence. For if leadership experts and educators continue to exclude from the conversation a leader such as Kim Jong Un, Leadership Studies will remain impoverished as an area of intellectual inquiry. And Leadership Development will be deprived of the pragmatism necessary to its real as opposed to imagined success.

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*Evan Osnos, “Letter from Pyongyang:  On the Brink,” The New Yorker, September 18, 2017.

Mark Warner, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is squeezing Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “I think that we’re still at the tip of the iceberg,” Warner said, speaking of Russia’s use of Facebook to influence the 2016 presidential campaign. “The fact is,” Warner continued, “I don’t think Facebook has put the resources, the time,” into probing the matter. “I think there’s a lot more” the company can do.

The metaphor – “the tip of the iceberg” – is Warner’s shot across Facebook’s bow. One of the Senate’s most prominent members has made it clear: none of the major tech companies will be immune any longer from public scrutiny. To the contrary – as special counsel Robert Mueller would similarly testify – these companies are prime targets in any Russia related investigation. (Because Mueller was able to secure a search warrant, he now has in hand all Russia-linked ads that ran on Facebook in the months leading up to the election.)

At first Facebook flatly denied any involvement in the campaign. Moreover, it had rejected the Clinton campaign’s contemporaneous request that it delve into the matter. In fact, Zuckerberg himself went on record as saying that the very idea that Facebook had any political impact at all was “pretty crazy.” Well, not exactly.

The real issue though is a larger one – it goes beyond Facebook. The real issue is, as New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo recently put it, that the most “glaring and underappreciated fact of internet-age capitalism,” is that all of us are now in “inescapable thrall” to the “Frightful Five” –  that is, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet. Ironically, until now, all five of these companies were virtually immune from public criticism, at least in the US. To the contrary, as Maya Kosoff wrote in Vanity Fair, for years, they were the object of our admiration, “ensconced in a halo of good will” that mostly protected them from the sorts of anti-trust investigations and large fines that were being leveled against them in Europe. Founders and chief executive officers were similarly ensconced – in that “halo of good will.” Men such as Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook have been far more admired for their extraordinary capacities than criticized for their inordinate overreach.

The times though “they are a-changin’”. Unsavory stories featuring one or another major tech company have started recently regularly to appear. (In the last 24 hours was this New York Times headline, “Google and Facebook Face Criticism for Ads Targeting Racist Sentiments.”) Additionally, is the climate in Washington, which is slowly starting to favor regulatory action. Prominent progressives have been critical of the major tech companies for some time. (Elizabeth Warren warned last year that companies such as Google and Amazon were “trying to snuff out competition.”) And now they are joined by Trump administration officials skeptical of behemoth tech companies that are usually perceived as left-leaning. Former White House aide Steve Bannon, for example, argued in favor of regulating Facebook and Google as public utilities.

For more than a decade no American leaders have been as powerful as those at the top of the Frightful Five. But in recent years they’ve been flying increasingly, perilously, close to the sun. Unless they get out in front of the recent headlines, they, like Icarus, are sure to get their wings clipped.