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Over the years several foundations have supported research in leadership. None was as interested in the subject, or as generous in its contribution over an extended period of time, especially in the 1980s and ‘90s, as the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The Kellogg Foundation supported the study of leadership before the study of leadership became (somewhat) fashionable. And the Kellogg Foundation supported the study of leadership as well as the practice of leadership before the leadership industry exploded. Years ago I myself was a modest beneficiary of this support, for which I remain grateful.

So it is with no degree of pleasure that I am witnessing the continuing decline of the Kellogg Company – the company that for so many decades was an icon of American commerce and of Americana more generally. Put directly, Kellogg has faltered. It has failed to keep up with changing times and tastes, as consumers continue to turn away from cereals and snack bars in favor of healthier and quicker breakfast alternatives. Just last week Kellogg was obliged once more to post steep losses ($293 million for the last quarter of 2014), and to predict flat sales.

Kellogg’s story is a familiar one. Companies that fail to anticipate the future, and to innovate accordingly, are destined, doomed if you will, to be left behind. America’s corporate landscape is littered with the corpses of such companies, or at least, with corporate corpuses that are much less healthy in the present than they were in the past. Kellogg’s CEO, John Bryant, has admitted as much, noting that the company he has led since 2011 has failed to keep up with consumers’ current preferences for food that is “simple,” for food that is “clearly less refined.”

Clearly the context within which Kellogg is operating has changed. Just as clearly Kellogg’s executives have been unable or unwilling to recognize that this change would inevitably have an impact on its core business. It is an irony of the industry – the leadership industry – that the company that did so much to support leadership theory and practice has been itself victimized by bad, as in incompetent, leadership. Perhaps if the industry had all along paid less attention to leaders and more attention to the circumstances within which they were located things might have been different.

My most recent book – Hard Times: Leadership in America – was published in October by Stanford University Press. The book explores the impact of context on leadership and followership  

Beginning February 3, I started posting in this space, in the order in which they appear, excerpts.

Excerpt from Chapter 3 – Religion

Religion has by and large served America’s leadership class well. “Members have, in general, practiced it privately; simultaneously they have, in general, used it to public advantage. America’s leaders have used religion to engage their followers and to sell them (us) on the idea, first, that the United States of America is the most blessed of all nations, and second that God has always been and remains to this day on America’s side. American leaders have, in short, used American religion to bind us – to the nation, and to them, and to each other….

But, again, American religion is not now what once it was. It is not only more diverse, it has, of itself, been weakened. Therefore, whatever resources religion provided in the past, provided to leaders in particular, in the present have been somewhat depleted. To be sure, we remain significantly more religious than our most obvious counterparts, people in places with similar western values and at similar levels of economic development. For example, while only 58 percent of Americans still say that religion is very important in their lives, in Germany that number is much smaller, only 21 percent, in Britain it is only 17 percent, and in France merely 13 percent. Still, however the numbers read now, they are changing fast. Polling results make clear that so far as religion is concerned, Americans are becoming more like Europeans.”

Repeatedly in recent years I’ve pointed out that leaders are getting weaker and followers – others – are getting stronger. The culture is now such, and the technology is now such, that there’s no bucking a wind blowing from below.

The case of Brian Williams is a case in point. It was assumed at first that his apologizing, sort of, for the errors of his ways would suffice. But it did not. Whereas previously he got away with shading the truth, or telling an outright lie, depending on how you look at it, this time others were so offended by his transgression that they refused to let up. The story caught on, Williams was repeatedly ridiculed, including relentlessly on social media, and so in short order he had no choice but to capitulate.

But so, tellingly, did NBC. Network executives had zero interest in pushing Williams from his perch. Williams was a cash cow, doing as well by the news division as by himself. But the situation became impossible. Leaders with vast reserves of power, authority, and influence were obliged to succumb to followers without. No more, and no less, than a sign of the times.

When one leader succeeds another leader the former is tempted to supplant the latter. Not merely to replace him or her, to step in where he or she left off, but to wipe the slate clean, to supersede by undoing, literally, what his or her predecessor accomplished. I had this once happen to me: what I had managed to put in place was nearly entirely dismantled by the person who succeeded me.

The issue came to mind while reading a recent piece in the New York Times about how New York City’s schools chancellor, Carmen Farina, had already rolled back more or less entirely the educational policies established over a twelve year period by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s predecessor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.* According to the Times this was not a nip and a tuck here and there. Rather it was a wholesale reversal of what Bloomberg’s chancellors had decided was in the best interest of New York City’s schools.

I am not smart enough to know whether it is Bloomberg or de Blasio who has the better approach to public education, or the better talent to manage the city’s schools. What I am smart  enough to know, however, is that undoing on a massive scale what your predecessor has put in place is not usually good leadership. Three reasons that apply in this case:

• The likelihood that Bloomberg’s data driven approach to making decisions about the city’s public schools was idiotic altogether is low. Bloomberg may not have been sufficiently sensitive to other criteria, and his numbers were by no means always politically persuasive. But entirely to supplant his method of managing the system with another that is as vague as it is unproven cannot reasonably be justified.
• Though there has been big change at the top of the system, there has not been the equivalent change in the middle of the system or at the bottom. In other words, though the chancellor is new, most of the others in the system are not new. They are holdovers from previous administrations, who are now being told that earlier measures of their successes and failures were invalid or, at least, not sufficiently valid to merit their maintenance. This complete lack of continuity is not good either for teachers or staff – not to speak of students.
• The message sent by discontinuity is that neither leaders nor managers know what they’re doing. What is Farina saying about her predecessors – Joel Klein, for example, and Dennis Walcott – when she reverses their policies? For that matter, what will her successor be saying about her when he or she rolls back the policies that she put in place? The messages being sent are 1) that New York City’s public schools are being run according to style (or ideology) rather than substance; and 2) that there is no such thing as some educational policies being demonstrably superior to other educational policies.

I get that leaders have personal and political stakes in putting their stamps on their systems. But the likelihood is strong that those who came before them had at least something sensible to contribute – which is why throwing the baby out with the bathwater is much more likely to be bad leadership than good leadership.

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*http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/nyregion/chancellor-carmen-farina-changes-new-york-city-schools-course.html?_r=0 I

My most recent book – Hard Times: Leadership in America – was published in October by Stanford University Press. The book explores the impact of context on leadership and followership.   Beginning February 3, I started posting, in the order in which they appear, excerpts.

Except from Chapter 2 – Ideology  

“It matters, matters a great deal, that the American ideology is about nothing so much as leaders and followers. It is about how leaders – particularly political leaders, but leaders more generally as well – should rightfully exercise power and authority. As important, it is about what followers, the American people, should rightfully claim as intrinsically and irrevocably theirs, for example, freedom. More precisely, the American ideology is about constraints on leaders and liberties for followers. Again, this does not mean that American theory is tantamount to American practice. What it does mean is that the American ideology on leadership and followership informed the American experiment at its inception – and informs it still.”

Just a few days ago I posted a piece titled “Mea Culpas.” I wrote the piece because we live in an apology culture –  a culture in which saying I’m sorry is presumed sufficient atonement.

Last night NBC anchor Brian Williams did in fact apologize for having misstated the facts. But he did not admit to what has to be called by its rightful name. He did not admit to telling an out and out lie. Instead he confessed to a blunder, an error, a mistake ostensibly innocently made.

But no way in hell would any rational, reasonable person confuse being shot down in a helicopter. Either you were shot down or you were not shot down. There is simply  no margin for memory error in an incident as traumatic as this one.

If Brian Williams were just another media hothead, it would be one thing. But he is not. He is the leading light of one of the three major networks, the anchor of the NBC evening news. What this means is that Williams arguably holds what is still the single most important post in American television. It pains me to say this, for he is obviously a major media talent, and he is to all appearances eminently likable. But for Brian Williams to remain in place after he has been outed as a serial liar would be by every measure wrong. The stock and trade of a network anchor is trust. Failing that, there is nothing.

My most recent book – Hard Times: Leadership in America – was published in October by Stanford University Press. The book explores the impact of context on leadership and followership.

Beginning February 3, I started posting, in the order in which they appear, excerpts.

Excerpt from Chapter 1 – History 

“So far as leadership and followership are concerned, the United States of America is singular. First, because of its revolutionary inception it has always been characterized by a political culture that is anti-authority, that ensures and even encourages conflict between, and also among, leaders and led. Second, because of its revolutionary inception it has always been characterized by a political culture that makes it difficult for anyone at any level to lead – up to and including the chief executive. Third, because of its revolutionary inception it has always been characterized by a national character that is independent and idiosyncratic, by men and women who as soon follow their own path as anyone else’s. Fourth, because of its revolutionary inception it has always been characterized by an ideology that, however, idealized, advantages the have-nots at the expense of the haves. And, finally, because of its revolutionary inception it has always been characterized by a set of documents – by laws, if you will – that codify, sanctify, the fulfillments of followers as well as of leaders.”

My most recent book – Hard Times: Leadership in America – was published in October by Stanford University Press. Beginning February 3, I will be posting excerpts. The book has 26 short chapters, including the Prologue and Epilogue. Selections from each will be posted in this space, in the order in which they appear.  

When this project is complete regular readers will have a sense of context. They will understand why leadership is not about single individuals. Rather it is about a system in which leaders, followers, and contexts each play equally important parts. While this particular book is about leadership in America, the components of context are fungible. They apply to leadership in the United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates, as they do to leadership in the United States.

Excerpt from the Prologue:

Hard Times: Leadership in America “is not a ‘how-to’ book – a book about how to be a leader. Instead it is a how-to-think-like-a-leader workbook that provides a clear, cogent corrective to the thousands of other instructions already available. Hard Times is a checklist of what you need to know about context if you want to lead in the United States of America in the second decade of the twenty-first century. It is not a handy-dandy manual on what to do and how to do it, for the specifics of the situation determine the particulars. What it does do is make meaning of leadership in America in a wholly new and different way. What it does do is provide every American leader with a framework for seeing the setting within which work gets done….

A few words about the title of the book: Hard Times. It signifies my bias, my strong bias. Leadership in America has always been difficult to exercise. But, for reasons that will become clear, leadership in America is more difficult to exercise now than it has ever been before.”

This is a piece that was waiting to be written. But until now I’ve been reluctant. I’ve been reluctant to believe that the past has so powerful a pull. I’ve been reluctant to believe that China like Russia would regress. I’ve been reluctant to believe that leadership can so quickly and completely turn bad. Until now.

Now though the evidence is conclusive. Now though we know that China’s President Xi Jinping is a dictator. He is not an imperial president. He is not a strongman. He is a dictator.

What is the evidence? What does a 21^st century dictator look like? What does a 21^st century dictator do to keep total control?

• He precludes unfettered access to the internet.
• He precludes unfettered access even to virtual private networks.
• He decimates the opposition, if necessary by prosecuting, punishing, and putting away those who publicly disagree with him.
• He turns his enemies into public enemies. (China’s ostensible recent anti-corruption drive has led to the arrest or punishment of more than a quarter of a million communist party members, including roughly 50 of ministerial rank or higher.)
• He shrinks the number of decision makers.
• He consolidate his personal political power.
• He controls security – domestic security, national security, cybersecurity, and military security.
• He controls the media.
• He controls members of the military, gets them publicly to swear their allegiance, makes them responsible directly to him.
• He controls public policy including domestic policy, foreign policy, and economic policy.
• He control the police, and the secret police, and the judiciary.
• He centralizes both political ideology and moral authority – in this case in a revived Communist Party.
• He cultivates his image.
• He controls his image.
• He brooks no dissent – by any individual or any institution.

Briefly, it seemed that China might be headed in a different direction. Activists dared to take to the streets to protest, and on China’s once lively internet were alternative political voices. But in the less than two years since he took office, President Xi has clamped down. He has taken to ruling with an iron fist. There is no gainsaying this. It is what it is. So I have had to adjust to the idea that China has regressed to autocracy rather than progressed toward democracy. And so will American policy makers have to adjust to the idea that dealing with Xi is dealing with a leader who smacks more of China’s poisonous past than its promised future.

One of the casualties of information overload is information fatigue. We know so much about so much – so much information competes for our attention – that we turn off and tune out.

So it has been with Ukraine. Though some of us have been beating this drum for months, most of us have been too distracted to pay the deteriorating situation in East Europe much mind. People die every day along the border between Ukraine and Russia. But they do so unspectacularly. They are killed anonymously, away from the cameras. They are not beheaded by ISIS, or assassinated by terrorists in the streets of Paris.

Still, it’s slowly becoming more widely appreciated that what’s happening in Ukraine is a big deal. The conflict between Moscow and Kiev is not a minor skirmish between minor players, nor has it proven amenable to settlement or diminishment. To the contrary. In recent weeks the violence in eastern Ukraine has been ratcheted up by the Russians, leaving the West to figure out what exactly Putin has in mind and what exactly to do about it. High time. For so far, precisely because we have been numb to the news out of Ukraine, the US and the European Union have responded only meekly and mildly. While sanctions have been imposed on the aggressor, on Russia, up to now the West has declined to provide Ukraine either with the military hardware it needs, or with the economic package it requires to become what the US and Europe want it to become: a stable and prosperous state, sympathetic to the West.

It’s been interesting to watch Thomas Friedman on this issue. Friedman is, of course, a longtime columnist for the New York Times, arguably the most prominent American journalist specializing in foreign affairs. For all his vaulted reputation, however, it’s taken him a while to claim in his column that the conflict in Ukraine is a crisis.

To Friedman’s credit, in his piece posted January 28 (link below), he admits that he’s been late to the table.  And he acknowledges that Russia has been an “awful” aggressor, disguising its heinous behaviors “by a web of lies that would have made Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels blush.” In fact, Friedman now goes so far as to argue that “Putin’s use of Russian troops wearing uniforms without insignia to invade Ukraine and to covertly buttress Ukrainian rebels bought and paid for by Moscow… is the ugliest geopolitical mugging happening in the world today.”

Amazing what happens when attention finally is paid. Amazing what happens the wheat finally is separated from the chaff.

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