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Ordinary Americans have a hard time organizing on their own behalf. Other than the high impact but short-lived Occupy movement, they, we, have been unable in recent years, in any significant, sustained way, to bring about change – even when there is wide agreement on what sort of change is called for. There has been, in other words, a disconnect: on the one hand a high level of popular dissatisfaction, and on the other an inability to turn this dissatisfaction into something new and different.

Occasionally this disconnect gives way. Occasionally something new and different does come to pass – as now, in two special, select cases. Two of America’s most wildly successful private sector disrupters – Uber and Airbnb – have started harnessing followers to their own purposes. Moreover both plan further to expand their already sizable armies of followers – consisting largely but not exclusively of satisfied customers – to fend off government attempts to regulate them.

Historically in America government has been supposed to protect ordinary people from the rapaciousness of big business. Now business is out to rally ordinary people against the protectiveness of big government. In both cases the idea is to provide people with what ostensibly they want. In both cases the idea is to forge people into a collective to maximize their political power. And in both cases people end up relying on others to do their organizing for them. Which begs the question: Why do Americans have difficulty acting in their own interest absent an outside agent?

 

Some years ago I developed a course at the Harvard Kennedy School titled “Leadership Literacy.”* It’s not, obviously, a how-to course. Rather the students  and I get at leadership by reading great works about leadership (such as by Plato, Machiavelli, and Freud), great works that are, themselves, acts of leadership (such as by Paine, Marx and Engels, and Friedan), and great works that echo leaders leading (such as by Gandhi, Churchill, and King).

One thing to emerge from the classics is how some of the history’s greatest leaders ever developed their ideas, and also their tactics and strategies, by taking to the printed page. In articulating on paper and, or, out loud, what they thought about leadership and why, they drafted a blueprint for how they later led.

Not only did legendary leaders do this – lesser leaders did the same. Ronald Reagan is a case in point. We now know about him that far from being the bozo he was frequently depicted, well before moving into the White House he had written and spoken extensively about policy, both domestic and foreign.

I am not drawing any parallels. But I am pointing out that Donald Trump – who himself has been thought a buffoon, a political novice and establishment outsider – is by no means a lightweight or even fresh to the fray. Far from it – as his literary legacy testifies.

First, though he has been a businessman first and foremost, like many other top corporate leaders, Trump has been steeped in politics for decades. Second, we recently learned that he gave serious thought to running for political office as far back as 1988. There’s an anecdote in Jon Meacham’s new biography of George H.W. Bush that reveals that Trump angled for, or at least flirted with being Bush’s original running mate. (Bush ultimately chose Dan Quayle.) Finally, and this returns us to being leadership literate, Trump has written books, a number of books, all of which deal either directly or indirectly with how to lead.

Most candidates for president now feel obliged to write a book – usually on how they’re the ones to save a declining America. Trump just did the same – it’s titled Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again.  But unlike most of his competitors, Trump’s been writing books for years, nearly every one about how he has been and maybe you too can be a stunning American success story. His biggest seller so far has been The Art of the Deal. It was originally published in 1987 – when Trump was all of 41!

Trump is a leader who has put his pen to paper for decades. Trump is a leader who has long thought about how to navigate and even dictate the intersecting worlds of business and government. Of money and media. And of people and power. Whatever else you might think him, to think him a fool is foolish.

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*The syllabus for the course is posted on line. A book based on the course is titled Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence.

Depends on how you define your terms, but you could say that the protagonists – the leaders, if you will – of the European migration crisis are the migrants themselves. They in any case are driving the action, while Europe’s ostensible leaders, its chancellors, presidents and prime ministers, are being forced to follow. The former, the migrants, have been proactive. The latter, the leaders, have been reactive.

This conundrum – this vivid evidence of how leaders and followers are fungible – is nowhere so much in evidence as in the person of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Until recently Merkel was without question the most admired political leader in Europe – arguably in the rest of the world as well. Widely esteemed during her nearly ten years at the helm, Merkel controlled not only growing Germany itself, but most of fragile and fragmented Europe as well. During every one of Europe’s recent crises – from Greece to Ukraine – she was able to quell the sense the situation was spiraling out of control. Each time she was able to walk a fine line between the different sides, holding the whole together.

Now, in the space of just a few weeks, the worm seems to have turned. At a minimum, Merkel’s ability to keep the lid on, to manage the migrant crisis, is being thrown into question. Interestingly, importantly, questions are being raised not so much outside Germany, as inside it. Merkel’s open door policy – her pledge to admit into Germany in a short period of time dauntingly large numbers of mostly Syrian refugees – is being challenged above all by members of her own Christian Democratic party. While it is tempting to situate Germany’s Christian Democrats in the larger context of Europe’s right wing – which in recent years has grown steadily more nationalistic and xenophobic – the reality is more complex. For the numbers, especially with no obvious solution to the crisis in sight, seem to a growing German minority overwhelming. Approximately 10,000 asylum seekers continue to arrive in Germany each day. This year alone the flow into this single nation of some 80 million will exceed one million, with many more sure to arrive in 2016.  Warned the liberal mayor of Tubingen, Boris Palmer, “If it continues, we’ll have 3.65 million more people in Germany in the next 12 months. I’m sorry, we cannot make that happen. The government must act, otherwise… social order will implode.”*

The irony of Merkel’s situation is that it is so unaccustomed. By opening the door as wide as she has to mainly Middle Eastern migrants, the Chancellor is in danger of squandering what has been her strongest political asset – her level of control of her person, and of the situation. This time though – motivated or moved by a humanitarian crisis – this most careful of politicians has thrown caution to the winds. For if even one thing goes wrong – say a single recent migrant endangers the public safety – the price Merkel will pay for deviating from her past pattern is likely to be high. And if she shakes, Europe will not only rattle, it will roil.

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*Quoted in, Stefan Wagstyl, “Merkel Opens Door to Her Opponents,” Financial Times, October 28, 2015.

 

 

 

The idea of Servant Leadership is as old as the notion of leadership itself. It goes back at least to the sixth century BCE, when Lao Tzu wrote,

The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead.

He is detached, thus at one with all.

Though selfless action, he attains fulfillment.

In recent decades the concept of Servant Leadership has flourished, even becoming a modest movement. It has evolved from a set of ideas promulgated primarily by a single man, Robert Greenleaf, first, to an organized body of thought; second, to an approach to practice; and third, to an ideology in which the purpose of leadership is to serve the needs and wants of the followers, not of the leader.

In 1970 Greenleaf – who was for many years an executive and management expert at AT@T – published a pamphlet titled, “The Servant as Leader.” The pamphlet is learned and literary, even slightly mystical. Greenleaf references figures ranging from Herman Hesse to Jesus to William Blake, but does not exclude from his discussion a pragmatist like Machiavelli.

“Who is the Servant-Leader? Greenleaf asks. He answers his own question:

The servant-leader is servant first…..It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. He is sharply different from the person who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve – after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.*   

The reason Greenleaf has become newly relevant is because the apology culture to which I first drew attention a decade ago has evolved even further. It has evolved into a humble culture in which it no longer suffices for leaders to say, “I’m sorry.” Instead they are expected to take total responsibility for anything that smacks of failure or in any way falls short. When Procter & Gamble’s CEO A.G. Lafley appeared earlier this month at the annual shareholders meeting, he told investors that “the buck stops with me,” and that he was sure that his successor would improve the company’s recently weak performance. Humility is “the flavor du jour,” says Fred Hassan, a former CEO of Schering-Plough, precisely because it is assumed that humble leaders are servant leaders. Their egos are in check. They listen to those around them – their followers. And their desire is first to serve and then to lead.

Given the growing popularity of servant leadership in some circles, it’s curious that in other circles the servant leader has been largely absent.  Whatever you might think of Donald Trump – who is topping the polls for Republican nominee for president in 49 states –the servant leader is not an image that comes immediately to mind. Nor for that matter has Hillary Clinton been sighted eating even a single slice of humble pie.

I’m supposing it’s our doing. I’m supposing it’s because we the American people have given not a scintilla of evidence that in the nation’s highest office, humility is a quality that we especially seek.

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*Robert Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader, Robert Greenleaf Center, 1970, p. 7.

 

I recently wrote three separate blogs, each titled “Women and Leadership – the Missing Link.” The series argued the importance of genetic gender differences to the issue of women and leadership. I pointed out that it is women not men who bear babies, and that it is women not men who breast-feed them. I then suggested that it was possible, just possible, that this difference pertained.

Days after I posted the third of the three blogs was an article in the New York Times (link below) essentially decrying the lactation police – the political correctness that pressured women, American women particularly, to breast-feed rather than bottle feed. Turns out that American mothers are more disposed to breast-feed, and breast-feed longer, than women in many other Western countries. Fully 79 percent of American mothers initiate breast-feeding, and fully 49 percent of American mothers still breast-feed 6 months later. This is in contrast to, say, Britain, where only 34 percent of women breast-feed after the first half year.

Without getting into the argument about the virtues of breast milk over bottled milk – not to speak of breast-feeding over breast-pumping – it seems increasingly evident that they are “modest.” It seems increasingly clear, in other words, that American women are pressured to breast feed not so much because breast feeding is so much better for the baby as because breast feeding is judged good mothering, whereas bottle feeding is judged less good mothering.

None of this is to suggest that women should not breast feed – or that women who want to be leaders should especially not breast feed. But it is to point out that this particular issue is particularly a women’s issue. And it is to point out that women with ambition have a choice. To breast-feed or not to breast-feed – that is the question.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/opinion/sunday/overselling-breast-feeding.html?_r=0

This week was yet another reminder of the importance of family ties in political life. While political dynasties are rare in Canada, this did not preclude the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, from scoring a surprisingly large victory over his opponents, including incumbent Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. Meantime, in the US, Jeb Bush continued to ensnarl himself in his brother, George W. Bush, most recently on the question of whether he was somehow culpable in the attack on the World Trade Center.

There is however one prominent member of the Clan Club who has separated herself – even distanced herself – from her illustrious kin. Hillary Clinton.

Last time around, in 2007 and 2008, when she competed against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president, Bill Clinton was regularly in evidence. While Bill was not always to Hillary’s advantage, it was obviously decided that a man widely regarded as the most gifted politician of his generation was more politically advantageous than disadvantageous.

This time around though is different. Bill Clinton has been seen nearly nowhere, even this summer and early fall when Hillary Clinton was stumbling, stung by the e mail scandal, caught short by Bernie Sanders, and unable or so it seemed to relax into her campaign for the nomination.

Now the worm has turned. The past couple of weeks have been good to Hillary Clinton. She scored two major victories – her performances in the Democratic debate and in the congressional hearings on Benghazi. And her position has been strengthened by Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential fray. She is in short sitting pretty this minute – without any apparent assist from her previously ubiquitous husband, the 42nd president of the United States.

Ironically, Hillary Clinton’s strong, steady, even steely appearance during yesterday’s marathon hearings did more than any single thing to prove to the American people that she is presidential timber. Whether she would ever have got to where she is now without her last name being Clinton is open to debate. What is no longer open to debate is that she merits a shot at the White House independent of and unencumbered by anyone else.

 

 

My book, The End of Leadership, came out in 2012. While the title was somewhat hyperbolic, I did mean it to suggest that leadership as we had known it had changed, likely forever.

My book Hard Times: Leadership in America, which came out in 2014, argued that the end of leadership was as much about context as it was about leaders and followers. Specifically, it was about how 24 different components of context made exercising leadership in 21^st century America difficult.

Nothing has changed since 2012 – in fact, as predicted, if you want to lead your task is even harder. Two reasons stand out. The first is followers – particularly our own profound, pervasive dislike and distrust of the system within which we are situated. The recent numbers are numbing. Between 2000 and 2015, the favorable rating of Congress plummeted 18 points; the presidency 16 points; even the Supreme Court 17 points. Nor does the private sector do better. Businesses and banks have had similar drops in public approval. Of course the reasons for this are as complex as numerous. Suffice it here to say that no quick fix is in evidence, which means that anyone who wants to lead in America – or for that matter in any democratic system – must for the foreseeable future do so in an atmosphere that is hostile.

The second reason leadership now is more difficult to exercise is because our attitude toward leadership per se has hardened. Since the establishment of the Republic, America has always had an anti-authority culture. Our revolutionary origin and ideology made certain of that. But, it is also true that in recent years leading has become even trickier. We know by now that command and control and pyramidal hierarchies are out. And we know by now that shared or distributed power and flattened hierarchies are in. What we know less well is the degree to which this trend has solidified – and to which it is being reified by younger generations. Demographics matter. Younger followers demand more than did their predecessors: they expect their leaders to be more transparent, and more forthcoming, and more equitable toward those ostensibly beneath them.

None of this should surprise us. For several hundred years of western history power has devolved, from those up high to those down below. Moreover technology – especially social media – has accelerated this trend. What it does suggest, though, is that anyone who would teach leadership, and anyone who would learn it, should be acutely aware of the hardships associated with leading in a climate as frail and fraught as this one.

Last week was an article in the Wall Street Journal headlined, “Companies Want to Know: How Do Workers Feel?” (Link below.) Golly, gee, I thought, isn’t that sweet?! As least some employers care about the well-being of their employees.

Silly me. I should’ve known better. Overwhelmingly, when companies want to know “how their workers feel” it’s not about the well-being of those in their employ, it’s about the well-being of the companies themselves. In fact, the overriding reason followers are given short shrift in the leadership literature is because the leadership literature is itself mostly targeted at the corporate sector – which cares more about corporations than it does about those who people them.

A moment into reading, I realized that this article was no exception. Self-interest drives the interest in knowing how workers feel. “Sentiment analysis software” is being used to uncover employee sentiments on issues ranging from diversity to promotion because in this competitive hiring market – especially in certain industries – companies are motivated to keep their workers happy in order to keep them in place. Twitter is an example. “Making sure that we know what employees expect out of their experience at Twitter and the degree to which we’re living up to those expectations is incredibly important to us,” said Twitter’s director of people systems and analytics.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Businesses are not only entitled to act in their self-interest, they are expected to do so. But just once I’d like to read an article about a company that wants to know how its workers feel for reasons less selfish and more altruistic. Just once I’d like to read an article about a company that wants to know how its workers feel just so that it can make them feel even better than they already do.

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-do-employees-really-feel-about-their-companies-1444788408

When Americans vote for president they do not actually vote for president. Instead they select presidential electors who, in turn, select the president. Moreover, we have scant chance directly to register our policy preferences. Instead we are obliged to leave this to our legislatures, including at the federal level, where Congress decides, or not, on our collective behalf.

By and large this is typical of democracies: legislators pass legislation intended to implement particular policy choices. One could argue that this works well when the legislature works well. But when it does not, when it is polluted by money and infected by dysfunction, as is the case now with Congress, the system itself must be corrected.

There is no obvious comparison between the United States and Switzerland. The two countries are different in nearly every important aspect – save one. Both are functioning, or supposedly functioning, democracies. The Swiss, however, have long had a tradition in which they themselves – not their elected officials – decide on political outcomes. In Switzerland no measure becomes law unless its citizens explicitly approve it – which explains why on average the Swiss go to the polls four times a year. Four times a year they vote on several issues at a time. Similarly, there is a procedure by which they can propose their own public policies. As a recent piece in USA Today pointed out, all it takes for this to happen is a petition with 50,000 signatures presented to the proper authorities. (Link below.)

I am hardly the first to suggest that America would benefit from more direct political participation. In fact, doing away with the Electoral College is a frequently proposed political reform. Which raises the question of why Americans are so resistant to change – even now, when 21st century technology would enable direct democracy to be easily tested. Historically have been two clear reasons. First, we are loathe to tamper with our own history. Every time anyone proposes a constitutional convention we break out in a national sweat. Second, direct democracy seems to us unwieldy. This country is so large, and so populous, and so diverse, governing by increasing participating seems a recipe for chaos.

But what we have now is just not good enough!  Truth is that unless we do something nothing will change. Truth is that to be paralyzed by the present political fecklessness is to be doomed to perpetuate it.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/10/14/switzerland-power-belongs-people-referendum/73829884/

ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE PEACE A CHANCE….

John Lennon – who would have turned 75 years old today.