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You think you had a rough week? In comparison with whom?

• Andrew Cuomo. Once touted as a likely Democratic candidate for president, the governor of New York has fallen on hard times. This past week more of the same. Faced with what the Wall Street Journal described as “scathing allegations” about his administration in a federal criminal complaint, Cuomo blithely insisted that he was conducting business as usual. Really? This while no fewer than nine people with close ties to the governor were charged by federal prosecutors with bribery and extortion. If this were the first time Cuomo smelled of scandal, it would be one thing. But it is not.
• John Kerry. It’s not often that an inordinately well-intentioned public official fails so repeatedly and resonantly. But Kerry has done it again. Once again he has tried as hard as he knew how to bring about a semblance of peace or, at least, a cessation of hostilities, only to fail miserably. This time of course in Syria. This time his humiliating failure was punctuated by the worst bombing of Aleppo – already the most wretched of all cities – since the start of the five-year-old civil war. John McCain described Kerry’s efforts to pursue a deal with Russia as “intrepid but delusional.” The latter has only four short months left to prove the former wrong.
• Paul Ryan. He’s turned craven. The Great White Hope of the Republican Party, the man who dared for an instant to withhold his support from the Republican nominee for president, has turned mute. Hedging his bets as Donald Trump has morphed from likely loser to within striking distance of the White House, Ryan has clammed up. It’s especially disappointing because we have every reason to believe we know how Ryan really feels. Because once upon a time not long ago Ryan chastised Trump for making a racist comment. Because once upon a time not long ago Ryan questioned Trump’s commitment to Republican ideals. Because once upon a time not long ago Ryan knocked the nominee on a regular basis. Because once upon a time not long Ryan was man enough – you should pardon the expression – to put his money where his mouth was. Now the reverse is true. Now Ryan puts his mouth where his money is.

No wonder we’re disheartened. Seems the good guy of the three was tilting at windmills.

James B. Stewart’s column in today’s New York Times about the Wells Fargo case is so solid, there’s no need for me to reiterate his argument.  (Link below.) I will however extract from his piece eight salient points, all of which pertain to bad leadership.

• Wrongdoing at the highest levels of Wells Fargo seems so clear, it has the virtue of providing the Justice Department with an unusual opportunity to put its money where its mouth is. To hold one or more corporate leaders accountable for their misconduct.
• Accountability for misconduct – in this case defrauding customers on a depressingly large scale – will be semi-achieved only if individuals are held responsible. It will never be achieved if only institutions are held responsible.
• To dismiss 5,000 people at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy for wrongdoing endemic to the corporate culture, is more reprehensible than doing nothing at all. It’s scapegoating – the powerful deflecting blame onto the powerless.
• Fraud is frequently difficult to ferret out. Not in this case it isn’t. One of the virtues of this case is that the charges of criminal wrongdoing are easy to understand.
• Corporate misconduct is easier to prosecute when political and public outrage are visible, palpable, formidable.
• Corporate misconduct is easier to prosecute when a single individual takes the lead. In this case a highly visible senator, Elizabeth Warren, an expert in financial services and also consumer protection, is the perfect attack dog. Her assault on Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf during Tuesday’s congressional hearing was lacerating, devastating.
• Warren’s attack on Stumpf had virtue of containing specific recommendations. She demanded he be criminally investigated, by both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, And she called for his resignation. (In the wake of Tuesday’s hearing, Stumpf did in fact resign, albeit only from his role as adviser to the Federal Reserve.)
• As usual, to follow the money is to have our anger stoked even further. Between 2011 and 2015 – right while the “epidemic of bogus account openings was in full swing” – Stumpf earned over $100 million.

Those of us who are card-carrying members of the Leadership Industry would do well to study what happened at Wells Fargo. Not only is it edifying, it is sobering. A sobering reminder of how little we know about bad leadership, and of how ill-equipped we are to stop or even slow it. If Stumpf and the now “retired” former head of retail banking at Wells Fargo, Carrie Tolstedt, end up paying a price for what took place on their watch, we’ll have cold consolation – which is, however, better than no consolation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/business/wells-fargo-tests-justice-departments-get-tough-approach.html?_r=0

If anyone out there resembles me – has as much of an interest in bad leadership and followership as in good leadership and followership – check out these two corporate cases. First the emissions scandal at Volkswagen – a story that broke a year ago. Second the sales scandal at Wells Fargo – a story that broke in recent weeks. Both will go down in the annals of the history of business as leadership and followership gone miserably wrong. Here five key questions that pertain to both companies:

• Where on the organizational hierarchy does responsibility lie?
• Who should still be punished – Wells Fargo has already fired more than 5,000 employees; but no one at or near the top has paid any sort of price for tolerating or even encouraging fraudulent practices – and for what exactly?
• How did the wrongdoing start – and morph over time into a toxin that poisoned the entire corporate culture?
• What does this tell us about the gaping hole between ethics in theory and ethics in practice?
• What can be learned from these cases – and what can be taught based on these cases?

Wells Fargo CEO, John Stumpf will be testifying this week before a fired up Senate Banking Committee. Good. Moreover, the bank has already agreed to pay a fine, and enter into an enforcement agreement with regulators. Also good. Volkswagen will pay much more dearly. Costs to the company for cheating on emissions tests are already calculated at over $20 billion. Even better.

Still, this sort of public purification will teach us nothing. For us in any enduring way to extract benefits from the costs will require two things. First, some leaders, some individual high flyers, will have to pay a visible, palpable, price. Second, we must get to the dark, dirty bottom of what happened as if our lives depended on it. Which, of course, they do.

Very few living American leaders have been able to retain their dignity. Very few living American leaders have been able to stay widely respected and deeply admired. Very few living American leaders have been able to remain clean while swimming in dirty waters.

An exception has been former Secretary of State, and Four Star General Colin Powell. An exception until now. Now that his e mails have been hacked, his veneer has been stripped bare. Not that he’s been knocked off his pedestal altogether. But he’s askew, his perfect persona rendered imperfect, less elegant, judicious, and moderate than he had led us to believe.

Apart from describing Donald Trump as a “national disgrace,” and apart from describing Hillary Clinton as “greedy” and filled with “unbridled ambition,” there’s something about Powell’s calling two of his former colleagues (Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney) “idiots” that’s unseemly. Not wrong, mind you, but unseemly –  unbefitting a man like Powell who has regularly been seen as being above the fray, the fray presumably beneath him.

So we reap what we sow. Another American leader bites the dust. Another instance of changes in culture and technology twinning to tarnish a man who spent a lifetime polishing his exterior.

Intermittent fixtures of this blog have been posts titled, “Putin Patrol.” But today’s “Putin Patrol” piece is unlike every other “Putin Patrol” piece. Up to now they have all reeked of fear and loathing. Today’s is a departure – it amounts to an inordinately reluctant tip of the hat.

I, like most Americans even dimly aware of his record, have nothing but contempt for the man of whom John McCain memorably said, “I looked into Putin’s eyes and saw three things – a K a G and a B.”  However, as an inveterate student of leadership, I cannot help but acknowledge Vladimir Putin’s exceptional leadership skills.

Unlike Donald Trump, who admires Putin for being strong at home, I do not. What’s most impressive about him is his exceptional capacity as a strategic player abroad, on the global chessboard. Wherever he has detected weakness, in the US, in Europe, in Asia, he has exploited it, with few exceptions to his considerable political benefit.

It’s hard to recall where Putin was just five years ago. On the global stage – nearly nowhere. Russia had been weakened and Putin was a bit player, puny in comparison with his most obvious counterpart, President Barack Obama. Since then though it is Russia’s influence that has greatly grown, while America’s has badly shrunk.

How did this come to pass? It began when Obama pulled back from his own “red line,” in Syria. When after a year of threatening “enormous consequences” if Syria used chemical weapons, Obama blinked, he backtracked, he backpedaled.  Instead of risking unilateral action against the Assad regime, Obama, operating from a position of weakness, in consequence of his failure  to make good on his threat, brought Putin into the diplomatic process. To broker a deal that would get Assad to destroy his chemical weapons, Obama desperately needed Putin’s cooperation. Which explains why the former opened the Pandora’s Box that let the latter get out.

Since then Putin’s power in foreign affairs has expanded exponentially. Wherever he saw that a door might be ajar, he pushed it open, usually (though not always) to his considerable personal and political benefit. In Crimea. In the Middle East. Most recently, ironically, in the United States, where Russian hacking has already intruded on the presidential campaign – and could become downright insidious.

To those (like me) who see leadership as being value free – inherently neither good or bad – Putin could be described as being in an important way a “good” leader. He is not ethical. But as a global player he sure as hell has been effective.

Here’s what’s troubling. It’s not Hillary’s health per se. No great surprise that she developed pneumonia. The extreme stress, the relentless fatigue, the constant shaking of countless hands – these alone might make any of us fall ill.

What’s troubling is that it took from Friday to Sunday for Clinton’s condition to be publicly disclosed. For 48 hours even the prying press remained in the dark, suspecting for at least part of that time something was wrong, but lacking confirmation from the candidate’s campaign.

Leaders are like you and me. They get hurt – to wit President Ronald Reagan. They get sick – to wit President Dwight Eisenhower. They get knocked out of the picture altogether – to wit President Woodrow Wilson.  They get traumatized – to wit President Calvin Coolidge. They get afflicted by a chronic disease – to wit President John Kennedy.

But, leaders are not like you and me in that their well-being impacts ours. Especially at the presidential level, leaders are responsible for their followers’ health and welfare – which is why, in recent times, the norm has been full disclosure. Certainly in the 21^st century, the assumption has been that presidents, and presidential candidates, owe it to the American people to level with them about their physical condition.

This year, alas, is, again, different. Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton has seen fit to be fully forthcoming about the state of their health.

For Hillary this persistent passion for privacy is potentially seriously damaging. First, it feeds right into the already existing narrative about her, which is that she is obsessively secretive.  Second, this latest act of concealment comes at a time when her campaign for the White House seems to be slowing. Her poll numbers are down; Trump’s are up.

If Clinton fails to break with her pattern of the past – if she fails to be even a smidgen more open – questions about her health will only get louder and last longer. Sad to say but behavior as rigid as hers has been up to now could end politically suicidal.

Petri dishes are used for growing things – microorganisms that might turn out to grow. Or, they might turn out not to grow.

Such is Hong Kong – a petri dish for a democratic movement that might that might turn out to grow. Or, it might turn out not to grow.

If you’re interested in the tension between democracy and autocracy, you could do worse than to keep your eyes trained on Hong Kong. Ever since the abortive but exceedingly important Umbrella Revolution (or Movement) of two years ago – during which primarily young political activists protested China’s growing control over what they perceived their domain – Hong Kong has been a focal point, potentially a flash point. On the one hand is China, which has grown more oppressive, repressive. On the other hand is Hong Kong, which now is part of China but which, for historical reasons, is distinct from China. As a result, Hong Kong denizens have grown increasingly, if still cautiously, resistant to China’s increasingly heavy hand.

Just last Sunday were elections in which pro-democracy politicians managed to snag 30 of the legislatures’ 70 electoral seats. This in spite of the fact that the system of voting was designed, rigged if you prefer, to favor China loyalists. Moreover, one of the elected legislators was a leader of the 2014 pro-democracy protests, who previously, not incidentally, was sentenced to 120 hours of community service for his political activities.

This drama is by no means over. Likely we’re only in Act One. It remains to be seen how Beijing will respond to this latest turn of events. And it remains to be seen how, in turn, Hong Kong will respond to Beijing’s response. Stay tuned.

Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is one of the most powerful leaders in the world. She is also one of the most successful leaders in the world. For over a decade she has presided over one of the world’s most peaceful and prosperous democracies, her leadership essentially unchallenged.

Last year she used her formidable clout to do something unprecedented: to admit into Germany over one million refugees, most from the war torn Middle East. This single decision – either brave and bold or dangerous and foolhardy, depending on how you look at it – has cost her dearly.

This past weekend, Germany’s now highly motivated right wing party, the AfD or Alternative for Germany, beat Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats into third place in important state elections. This humiliating result has been viewed as a referendum on Merkel’s immigration policy – and, also, on Merkel herself. It’s shot across her bow, a warning to the Chancellor that before next year’s general elections, attention better be paid.

Merkel’s pro-Europe policy is similarly vulnerable, especially in the East, which previously could be counted in the EU (European Union) camp. Just recently she visited Warsaw to meet with East European leaders, including those from Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Of course the gathering was cordial enough. But, it was equally clear that each of Merkel’s East European counterparts had grave reservations about both cornerstones of her policies – on immigration and (EU) integration.

The judgement of history will be kind to Angela Merkel. But unless she reverts to the caution that historically was her hallmark, her short term future will be harsher.

In my book, Bad Leadership, I identified Insular Leadership as one of seven different types of bad leadership.

Insular Leadership – The leader and at least some followers minimize or disregard the health and welfare of “the other” – that is, of those outside the group or organization for which they are directly responsible.   

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple for the last five years, has turned out such a leader. He and his team have sullied Apple’s name by giving the company a by now ingrained reputation for aggressive tax avoidance. This has been an issue in the US for years – now it’s also an issue in Europe. Fairly or unfairly, the European Union just ordered Ireland to get Apple to pay than $14 billion in unpaid taxes.

The details of who should collect what from Apple do not concern me here. What does concern me is that Apple has lost its polish. For years it was one of the most successful and admired companies on the planet. Now, in his zeal to increase still further Apple’s huge stash of cash, Cook has tarnished his company’s name.

A good corporate citizen Apple is not.

How does change happen? Contrary to the popular conception – that change agents are leaders – change agents sometimes are other than leaders. Sometimes they are followers. Sometimes they are ordinary people fed up with what they’ve been fed.

Yesterday the company Mylan, the maker of EpiPen, an emergency treatment for severe allergic reactions, especially but not exclusively in children, announced that it would backtrack. That instead of charging about $600 for a pack of two, it would offer a similar if not identical product that would, however, cost the consumer only about $300 .

By taking the highly unusual, indeed positively weird, step of introducing a generic version of EpiPen, thereby cannibalizing its own brand, Mylan was hoping to shut down the opposition.  Hoping to shut down the anger and furor in response to price increases that included a jump from $249 to $615 in just the last three years.

So how, precisely, did this change happen? How, precisely, were pushed parents able to push back so hard that Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan, felt forced to retreat? Here’s the sequence:

• Mellini Kantayya, an actress who lives in Brooklyn, has a husband with an allergic condition. He uses EpiPens, but his health insurance covers the cost. Kantayya was nevertheless struck by a recent piece about ambulance crews that no longer carried EpiPens, because they could no longer afford them. She was further struck by the plight of a friend, the mother of a child with food allergies, whose costs for EpiPens were not covered by insurance. Angered by what she saw as a drug company run amok, Kantayya went online to Petition2Congress.com, which collects signatures and sends them to members of Congress. Her petition went live on July 11 – it was called, “Stop the EpiPen Price Gouging.”
• Kantayya shared the link with her 836 Facebook friends.
• Within 45 days, Kantayya’s petition grew from a few dozen signatures to more than 80,000. Additionally, by then more than 121,000 unhappy letters had been sent to Congress.
• Meantime, a woman named Jennifer Vallez, who has a daughter with a peanut and tree nut allergy, was the second person to sign Kantayya’s petition. (They are friends.) Vallez also went on to share it with her 533 Facebook friends.
• Robyn O’Brien, is a well-known parent activist and writer with a strong social media following. She began hearing about EpiPens from her 165,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter. On July 21 O’Brien wrote about the price problem in a post that was shared 727 times.
• One week later, a mother whose 14 year old son had died of a food allergy, posted an article on O’Brien’s website about Mylan’s “EpiPen Profiteering.” Her post was shared 477 times, reaching out to 110,00 people.
• O’Brien and others continued to press the case against Mylan. On August 17, she joined with another parent activist, of the website Peanut Allergy Mom, to urge all their readers to sign Kantayya’s original petition. Signatures surged another 10,000.
• Along the way, mainstream media joined the fray, covering the EpiPen opposition with increasing regularity and frequency.
• On August 18, Bernie Sanders weighs in, on Twitter, against Mylan, of course. His line was retweeted 8,789 times, reaching nearly 2.8 million people.
• By the last week of August, the story of overpriced EpiPens was in full force. As detailed by the New York Times, by then it had been widely covered and Congress had gotten involved. Senator Amy Klobuchar, for example, has a daughter with allergies who carries an EpiPen. Suddenly, that is, in response to what had by now become a public outcry, Klobuchar was calling for both a Judiciary Committee inquiry on Mylan, and an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.*

And so it happened that Mylan decided to provide the public with two versions of the same drug – one half the price of the other. And so it happened that change came about not from above but from below. And so it happened that change came about within six weeks nearly entirely because pushed parents pushed back.

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*For more details, see the article on which this blog drew, by Tara Parker-Pope, “How Parents Harnessed the Power of Social Media to Challenge EpiPen Prices,” New York Times, August 25, 2016.