Author: Barbara

The syndrome is by now familiar, foretold in my book, The End of Leadership, which came out in 2012. Since then, the evidence is constant, if complicated. This is not to say that followers – people without obvious sources of power, authority, and influence – invariably triumph over their leaders in, for example, the United States. Not by a long shot. But it is to say that in general leaders – defined here as people in positions of authority – have a hard time exercising the authority that putatively is theirs.

This has implications that are major not minor, and they are not only in theory, but they are also in practice. Among the other consequences, most leaders are aware of how relations between leaders and followers have changed during the last decade. Which means they are far more careful now than they used to be about exerting the power and authority that technically is theirs – for they know full well they risk being overthrown if they are too heavy-handed.

This appears to be precisely what happened in recent months at New York University. The school terminated its contractual relationship with a highly eminent professor of organic chemistry, Maitland Jones, Jr. Why? Because students did not want him to be their instructor. Because students said his course – considered by many a gateway to medical school – was too hard. Because 82 of his 350 students signed a petition against him. Because other conciliatory overtures made by the school to the students did not mollify them.

As the story was reported – by among other outlets the New York Times – there was modest blame on both sides. That is, the professor’s and his employer’s. The details do not, however, concern us here, whereas the overarching point does. Here is how the Times summarized it: “The entire controversy seems to illustrate a sea change in teaching, from an era when professors set the bar and expected the class to meet it, to the current, more supportive, student-centered approach.”

This “sea change in teaching” is of course representative of a sea change in the U. S. more generally. It is a sea change in the dynamic between leaders (professors) and followers (students). And, since everything is connected to everything else, it is also about a sea change in standards – standards for leaders.

Professor Maitland is old school. He has been an outstanding scholar and, judging by his several awards for teaching, also a good or even a very good instructor. But the days when he could count on being respected for his exceptional accomplishments are over. Leadership remains an occupation not a profession. Character is considered secondary or tertiary, not primary. And expertise and experience count for little or nothing as opposed to nearly everything. If you don’t think there’s a connection between the sad, sordid candidacy of Herschel Walker, Republican candidate for Senate from the state of Georgia, and what happened to Professor Maitland, think again.

Why the quote marks around “everything is connected to everything else”? Because I’m quoting … myself. I must have said it millions of times when teaching leadership and followership.

Examples: Leaders are connected to followers. Past is connected to the present. Past and present are connected to the future. What people think is connected to how people behave.  Social media are connected to political performance. Increasing freedoms are connected to growing constraints. Markets in Great Britain are connected to markets in the United States. What Vladimir Putin does is connected to what Xi Jinping says. What Xi Jinping says is connected to what Nancy Pelosi does. What Nancy Pelosi does is connected to American public opinion. And so on.

“Everything is connected to everything else” came to mind when reading Max Fisher’s New York Times column of a couple of days ago, titled, “Power of the Protest is Waning Worldwide.”* Fisher’s piece is obviously about relations between leaders and followers – about relations between those with power and authority and those without.

Based on research conducted by Harvard political scientist Erica Chenowith, Fisher writes about how the odds of success of political protests – such as the one currently in Iran led by women – have in recent years sharply declined. Whereas just twenty years ago these sorts of movements succeeded two in three times, now that success rate has been halved, to one in three. Put somewhat differently, as followers have become more demanding, leaders have become more controlling. The increase in the number of autocracies in the world is connected, directly, to the increase in the number of democracies in the world or, more precisely, to the increase in the number of democratic demands. Demands for rights, whether the rights of women in Tehran or transgenders in Chicago.

Bearing in mind that everything is connected to everything else, the reasons why the power of the protest is, at least for the moment, waning, are familiar: increased polarization which means people power is less likely to be a mass movement with widespread support; the impact of social media which are good at sending the message but bad at supporting the message with experienced leadership and effective organization; and a learning curve for autocracies hellbent on suppression – that is, they have learned to use to internet to scare people into silence, into obedience.

Given the present is connected to the past no surprise that more than a half century after the various rights revolutions – such as civil rights, women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights – is a backlash. A backlash represented by political leaders such as Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Jair Bolsonaro, hellbent on putting back into the box that which was let out of the box. Followers who refuse to follow.    

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 *https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/middleeast/iran-protests-haiti-russia-china.html 

Most leaders become leaders when they are of a certain age – when they are not young. Of course, there are exceptions to the general rule, but they are just that, exceptions.  Even Emmanuel Macron, seen as young when he became president of France, was not a kid. He was 39. Moreover, many of the rest are positively elderly, Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden (both are over 75) are prime examples, as are JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon and Target’s Brian Cornell (both are over 60), not to speak of Berkshire Hathaway’s geriatric if still iconic CEO, Warren Buffett (he is over 90).

Why does this matter?  Is it ageist even to suggest that it does? Maybe. But common sense suggests that when leaders are older as opposed to younger, when they are well into or even past middle age, getting them to change their ways is more difficult and less likely. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks – especially if the old dog has been top dog for a very long time.

Which brings me to Russian President, Vladimir Putin. He is 69. And, he has been president or prime minister of Russia for over 20 years. By every measure then he qualifies as an old dog – which suggests that he is set in his ways, that his past will forever be his prologue.

Assuming this logic applies, what is it that we in the West should best remember, place front and center? That he does not hesitate to be barbaric. That he does not hesitate to take risks. That he does not hesitate to play dirty. That he does not hesitate to be aggressive. That he does not hesitate to exercise power. That he does not hesitate to control. That he does not hesitate to remain in the game. That he plays to win – no matter the cost.

It’s possible of course that as it pertains to Ukraine Putin will change.  But given who he is, coupled with his longevity – both his advanced age and the length of his time in office – I wouldn’t bet on it. Does this have implications not just for the people of Ukraine but for people the world over? That I would bet on.

I’ve posted pieces about Russian President Vladimir Putin for almost a decade – usually under the title, “Putin Patrol.”

Why, I’ve wondered, my particular interest in him, given it began when he was just another Russian leader – not that impressive, not that different from most of his predecessors, not that distinguishable from other strongmen with whom the West was preoccupied. Perhaps it was just that he was leader of Russia, formerly of the Soviet Union, the country that in my lifetime has been the United States’ most obvious if not always most onerous adversary.

Now though is different. Now Putin has become an obsession. Now Putin is not just my obsession but everyone else’s – everyone everywhere in the world who is remotely aware of what’s happening in the international system.

We are fixated on what Putin thinks and why. We are obsessed with everything he says and everything he does. We worry about him staying sane and grasping that actions have consequences. We are convinced that cornering him is dangerous – we are equally convinced that he must be cornered.

But…even the best and brightest are reduced to reading tea leaves. This morning the distinguished foreign policy experts, David Ignatius (Washington Post) and Ed Luce (Financial Times), were together on television. Predictably they spoke about Putin. But not a single syllable they said – nothing, nada, zilch – was new or different. Either informative or enlightening. Because they have no idea what Putin will do in the future, they simply reiterated what we already know about him from the past.   

This is not to say that we have nothing to learn, or to relearn, from this case. We do. Here ten leadership lessons drawn so far from Putin’s War.

1. Leaders matter. But they matter more in some cases than in others.
2. Leaders matter a lot when they have great power and high authority.
3. Leaders matter a lot more when they have great power and high authority and when they lead countries or companies that are strong as opposed to weak.
4. Leaders matter most when they 1) have great power and high authority; 2) when they have great power and high authority in countries or companies that are strong as opposed to weak; and 3) when power is centralized.
5. Centralized power is power that is dangerous. Decision making tends much more often to be flawed and implementations of decisions much more often to be poor.
6. Followers matter. But they matter more in some cases than others.
7. Followers matter more when they do something as opposed to when they do nothing.
8. Followers matter however even when they do nothing. When followers do nothing, they support the status quo – they support the leader who already is in place.
9. Past is prologue. Anyone who has watched Putin over the years and is aware of how strongmen work, could have predicted that he would do what he did. That he would either invade Ukraine or try in another way to take a bite out of its hide. After all, he already took a bite, a big bite, in 2014, when he seized Crimea. But when he swallowed it whole what was the response? How did NATO and the European Union react? With piddling peeps of protest.
10. Dictators usually fall. I predict that Putin will fall, though like every other so-called expert I have no idea when or how. Still, I am persuaded that Putin’s decision on February 24, 2022 to invade Ukraine will be the death of his dictatorship. Literally or figuratively.

Most Americans have spent most of Donald Trump’s time in public life thinking him, treating him, as if he were normal. From when he first descended the Trump Tower escalator in 2015, formally to announce his candidacy for the presidency to the present moment, when we feverishly debate the legalities of his having stashed top-secret documents at his home in Palm Beach, we discuss who he is and what he did as if he were ordinary. Just another man, just another president, just another leader. We do not think about him, talk about him, as if he were that which he decidedly is – abnormal, aberrational.

In part we do this because Trump has many fervent followers. Many American voters eager to follow where he leads. Many Republican elites eager to be in his good graces. If Trump were widely described as mentally ill what would that say about his tribe and his team? Surely the chattering classes have been inhibited from describing Donald Trump as “crazy” or “mad” because to say that about him would call into question his legions of ardent supporters.     

So, we remain obsessed with the former president while continuing to compare him, as if he were normal, to his predecessors, especially Richard Nixon. But Donald Trump is so unnormal, so strange, so odd, so peculiar, that the comparison is as mistaken as misguided. We must think of him differently. We must think of Donald Trump as mentally unfit.

His addiction to lying, his inability to separate fact from fiction, and his extreme paranoia are not just oddities. They are symptoms of a sickness. But so long as we continue to treat him as just another leader gone rogue his followers will remain faithful. To say that Trump is somewhat corrupt will not pry his followers loose. To say that he is somewhat sick might.

There is a small literature on leadership and mental illness. In the 1970s was a subfield called psychohistory in which a few historians, political scientists, psychologists, and psychiatrists fused history and psychoanalytic analysis to study political leaders. Since then, since psychoanalysis was marginalized, has been what professor of psychiatry, Nassir Ghaemi, describes as a “perspective on mental illness that is scientifically and medically sound.” This psychiatry, he argues, can be “an extremely useful tool for historians.”*

Ghaemi’s perspective is confirmed by the introduction in recent years of a variety of terms, all of which describe leaders who are in some way outside the range of what is considered psychologically normal. These terms include mental illness, mental disease, or mentally abnormal; abnormal personalities or abnormal temperaments; and political paranoia. Of course, what matters even in those cases to which any of these terms apply, is not the disease itself. What matters is how it effects the leader’s capacity to lead. Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill both suffered from depression. It does not, then, suffice to say that a leader is mentally abnormal. The question is, what is the effect of their abnormality?

In the late 1990s a psychiatrist and political scientist coauthored a book titled, Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred. ** Though the book appeared long before Trump ever imagined becoming president, how it describes “individuals with a paranoid personality disorder” applies to many of Trump’s most distinguishing traits and behaviors. Such individuals:

• Believe that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving them – they perceive themselves as victims.
• Are preoccupied with the loyalty or trustworthiness of associates and friends.
• Read hidden demeaning or threatening messages into benign remarks or events.
• Persistently bear grudges – they are unforgiving of perceived insults, injuries, or slights.
• Perceive attacks on their character or reputation that are not apparent to others – and they are quick to react angrily and to counterattack.

Do these signs and symptoms sound familiar?

In 2017 another book came out, this one focused only on Trump, to which 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts contributed chapters.*** In retrospect it constitutes a clear and present warning. This is not to argue that everything in the book was right. Rather it is to say that its overarching argument was prescient. “We need to avoid uncritical acceptance of this new version of malignant normality.”

Of course, hardly anyone paid attention. In large part this is because psychiatry is still regarded with suspicion, as not quite a science. And it’s because psychiatrists themselves are leery about speaking out, worried they will be seen as professionally suspect or politically biased. It’s also because we ourselves prefer to remain in denial. We don’t want to hear that our leader is an unbridled hedonist; or a pathological narcissist; or delusional; or cognitively impaired; or abusive or dangerous; or bad or mad, or maybe both. Not only is the information disturbing it is disabling. Even if it’s true it doesn’t seem like there’s much if anything we can do about it.

But is that true? Is there anything to be done? Well, we could start by calling it out.

Let’s assume that psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals are not all quacks. This could mean that when an American president breaks all norms, threatens the very democracy on which the system is based, and denies reality, he (she) would be identified by experts such as these as being so out of the range of normal that he (she) is mentally ill. Such a judgement would of course still be contentious and even fractious. But at least it would give license to those professionally educated and equipped to name an illness when they see it. Rather than being sidelined, they would be mainstreamed.

Donald Trump is not well. Since November 2020 he has been politically unwilling and, or, psychologically unable to acknowledge his electoral defeat. He has instigated a violent attack on the United States Capitol. And he has stolen top secret documents from the United States government. He is not just morally and ethically impaired. He is mentally and psychologically impaired. Time to stop skirting this truth. Time to bring physical and mental health out into the open and to ask how we protect the presidency from ever again being victimized by someone who is in either way unfit. The mechanisms currently in place manifestly are not up to the task.

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* A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness (Penguin, 2011), p. 5.    

** Robert Robins and Jerrold Post (Yale University Press, 1997).

 *** Bandy Lee, ed., The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (St. Martin’s Press, 2017).

King Charles III

I posted twice on Queen Elizabeth II. The first appeared in September 2015 – it was titled, “The Queen of Quiet.”

The Queen of Quiet

The second appeared in June of this year – it was titled, “The Queen – Is She a Leader?”

The Queen – Is She a Leader?

Now though it’s the dawn of King Charles.

“Poor Charles,” has long been the lament. He was always somewhat geeky and gawky. He was always putting his foot wrong. (Anyone other than me remember “Tampongate”?) He was always odd in his private pursuits. (He worried about climate change before the rest of us had heard of it.) He was always beset by family issues. (His cold, distant parents; his disastrous first marriage; his wretchedly wayward brother, Andrew; his errant son and daughter in law, Harry, and Meghan.) He was always the man in waiting – waiting for his mother to die before he could take a full-time job.

Charles though has been underestimated. At age 73 he is neither stupid nor foolish. He is well and happily married and has a good relationship with the man who will be king, his son, William. His interests – including climate change, now at the top of the global agenda – are thoroughly contemporary. And he has every intention of streamlining the monarchy better to suit it to the 21^st century.

Moreover, Charles III will be replacing Elizabeth II when the context is favorable. He can never replace his mother – or for that matter his former wife, the peerless, ageless Diana – in the hearts of the British people. But he is becoming king when Great Britain badly needs a younger royal to succeed the ancient one just passed.

Prime Minister Liz Truss has not been in office a week. She is inexperienced and untested. This at a moment when Britain’s economy is seriously straightened – sky high inflation, labor unrest, the uncertain impact of Brexit, and a war in Europe fueling an energy crisis that, among its many costs, includes a cold winter ahead.

This is not, then, a good moment for the British people. But if he has a feel for what his people need at this time in their history, it could be a good one for the king.

The transition from Elizabeth to Charles is not likely a crisis for the monarchy. It is more likely an opportunity for the new leader of the House of Windsor.

Sometimes people lead inadvertently – they lead when they have not the slightest intention of doing so. Such is the case with Salman Rushdie, the novelist and literary figure who twice over in his life did not bargain for his words carrying such weight.

The first time was in 1988, in the wake of the publication of his novel, The Satanic Verses. Surely in his book he intended satire and irreverence. Just as surely, he did not imagine the price he would pay for his provocation – forevermore a target on his back.  So enraged, so offended by what Rushdie had written was Iran’s leader at the time, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that he issued a fatwa, a call for Rushdie’s death. This fatwa, now three and a half decades old, was never lifted. Which, so far as we know, explains why Rushdie was attacked last week, stabbed multiple times by a man who rushed onto the stage during what up to that moment had been the most peaceable of arts festivals.

Because he famously has been hunted beginning in 1988, Rushdie has long been a leader of the campaign for free speech. Specifically, he has fought for the right of writers to write what they see fit. But, in the wake of the near-fatal attack on him last week, his status as a leader was, again inadvertently, enhanced and advanced. It was further buttressed by the times in which we live. Times during which speech has become cheaper and easier, uglier and more outrageous, more incendiary and more violent.  

Once Rushdie emerges from his recovery he will be anointed one of the most important leaders in the free world.  The excellent British-American public intellectual, Simon Schama, his already pitted him against the might of authoritarians.  “For all their suffocating triumphalism,” Schama wrote, “the enemies of the liberated word rightly fear that however many they incarcerate, torture, or kill, none of these brutalities can permanently entomb critical thought. Almost always, the achievements of artists outlive the squalid cruelty of tyrants.”   

I have argued for many years that no weapons of leadership are more powerful than words. So, Salman Rushdie leading the charge against the dark is fine with me. Despite his never having campaigned for the honor – or bargained for how dearly it would cost him.

In all the ink that’s been spilled over the political blows recently landed on Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney – from being booted out of her House Republican leadership post to suffering an ignominious defeat in this week’s GOP primary – few references have been made to her gender.

One might argue this is progress. Who cares any more about gender? It’s become irrelevant.

Guess what. It has not. Fact is that Cheney’s being a woman matters. This is not to say that had this same virulent anti-Trump crusader been a man the outcome would have been entirely different. Rather it is to argue it would have been somewhat different. Her two defeats less complete.

Like all leaders, Liz Cheney must be put in context. Which is to say she must be put in the context of being a Republican woman from the state of Wyoming who is a member of the U. S. House of Representatives.

The components of context that most obviously pertain are:

• A significant, persistent, partisan gap. In the 117^th U. S. Congress there are 39 women out of a total of 212 Republicans, compared to 105 women out of a total of 224 Democrats. Put differently, of Republicans in the House less than one-fifth are women; of Democrats in the House almost half are women.
• A significant, persistent, gender gap. When it comes to women in politics at the level of the state, Wyoming ranks near the bottom. Less than 20% of the state’s elected officials are women.

Another way of looking at these numbers is in the context of what is considered a critical mass. Studies of when the presence of women begins to have an impact abound. Across the board anything less than 20% has been found too small for women’s voices effectively to be heard. It takes fully 30% of women for them to feel equal to men and, therefore, to act as, and be treated as, equals.

Bottom line is that in her home state of Wyoming, and in the U.S. House of Representatives, Elizabeth Cheney has been disadvantaged by being a woman. People, including pundits, have been reluctant to say this out loud. But the facts speak for themselves.

U. S. Representative Elizabeth Cheney is a deeply committed Republican from a deeply Republican state. Moreover, her mother, Lynne Cheney, and her father, Dick Cheney, were themselves stars of Wyoming’s Republican Party, both extremely prominent and successful political figures for decades.

But that was then. Last night’s great surprise was not that Liz Cheney paid for her fierce opposition to former President Donald Trump by losing the Republican primary for her House seat. Rather the surprise was the magnitude of her loss. Liz Cheney was defeated by Trump-backed Harriet Hageman by nearly 40 points. Ouch!

Cheney acknowledged her loss by delivering a prepared statement in which she signaled her career in American politics was not over. She referenced great political and military comebacks, notably those of President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant. Additionally, anti-Trump Republicans and, of course, Democrats are spending this morning lionizing Cheney, and deciphering what they seem certain will be her splendid political future.   

Trouble is that for years to come Liz Cheney will be unable use Wyoming as her base. Her parents are relics, and she is now without a political home. If Cheney is serious, therefore, if she really does decide her future lies in American electoral politics, the first thing she should do is get out. Pack her bags, leave Wyoming, and establish her primary residence in a state that will be reasonably hospitable – or at least not virulently antipathetic – to a Republican renegade such as she. If losing an election by almost 40 points does not signal you’re not wanted, I don’t know what does.

Last month I posted a two-part piece on leadership and climate change. To remind or inform you, the links are below.

In the second of the two posts I mentioned the name of Larry Fink. He is the CEO of BlackRock, which is the world’s largest asset management company. (It controls some $10 trillion.) Because Fink had gone on record several times in recent years as an advocate of tackling the problem of climate change, and because he spoke not as a private person but in his capacity as the leader of one of the world’s most powerful companies, I thought it possible that he, perhaps more than any other prominent executive, might lead the charge against a climate crisis of growing proportions.    

Silly me. The ink was, so to speak, hardly dry on my post when there was this headline in the Financial Times, “BlackRock cuts back support for climate and social proposals.” I almost screamed but did not, “Say it isn’t so, Larry!”

Fink, it turned out, had not only not led on climate change, he followed. BlackRock’s support for US shareholder proposals on environmental and social issues fell this year by nearly half!

Why? Because Fink had come under special criticism from Republicans who charged that BlackRock was pushing a “woke capitalism.” Because some states were threatening to boycott financial services groups that “discriminated” against fossil fuels. You get the picture. As Harvard Business School professor Lucien Bebchuk put it, big asset managers want to appear “responsible stewards.” But they also seek to “accommodate corporate managers and avoid adversarial relationships with them… and to reduce the odds of a political and public backlash against their power.”   

On one level I get it. Someone like Fink considers that he has a responsibility to the public – but that he has a much greater responsibility to his stakeholders. Still, it’s damn disappointing to see a leader like him cave so quickly and completely on an issue of such great urgency.

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What Should Leaders Do? – Part I – Barbara Kellerman

What Should Leaders Do – Part II – Barbara Kellerman