Author: Barbara

Perhaps I’m being premature. But as it looks now, Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, is nothing so much as a leader to be pitied. He has presided over the United States Supreme Court during a time of its possibly, if not probably, irreversible decline.

Of course, no one, save those intimately familiar with the court’s proceedings, can know how effective Roberts is in dealing with the court’s eight other justices. After all, he has no power over them, scant authority and, clearly, precious little influence.  What we can know though is that Roberts is an unwilling if not also unwitting victim of the times in which we live.

Why so dramatic a word as “victim”? Because if Roberts is known for being anything it is as an institutionalist. An institutionalist who, from his perch as Chief Justice, has wanted nothing so much as to protect the Supreme Court – protect its reputation, and such as remained of its dignity and legitimacy, from the slime that now sullies much of America’s political landscape.

But it was not to be. From the start Roberts was forced to fight an uphill battle, presiding over the Court during a time in which every American institution, without a single exception, has suffered from diminished levels of respect, and of trust. Though for years the Supreme Court remained somewhat exempt from this pernicious trend – its levels of approval remained higher longer than its institutional counterparts both inside and out of government – it has not been able to resist it altogether. For years it too declined in the nation’s esteem. But after this week’s debacle, its status in what historically was its place in America’s pantheon is likely to be greatly, and permanently, reduced. Roberts’s best efforts notwithstanding, what has happened in the last seven days could be the institutional equivalent of a coup de grace.

The Court this week sustained not one but two bad blows. The two are related, but separate and distinct. The first is the opinion itself. The earthshaking opinion that is nearly certain before the end of June to overturn Roe v. Wade, which for approximately a half century gave women the legal right to obtain an abortion. The second bad blow is of course the leak. The leak of the draft opinion on abortion that violated not only the court’s tradition but its decorum – both of which are of maximal importance to the Chief Justice.   

To Roberts the unprecedented leak likely is even worse than the extremity of the (preliminary) opinion. For it implies disarray, and disorder. The leak implies a court that for the indefinite future is destined to be irreparably divided – as polarized and politicized as the rest of America. It also implies a leader who, while without fail is cordial and courteous, is not especially competent.  Sad fact is any reasonably well-intentioned leader unable even to keep his own house in order is less to be envied than pitied.    

In the last few weeks, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, got a lot of attention. In large part because of the war in Ukraine, the concomitant revival of NATO, and the resurgence, thanks to Ukrainians, of liberal values, the stakes in the recent French elections were high. The French were seen as having a momentous choice: between the center on the one hand, and the right on the other. (It was assumed the left, though not the far left, would opt for Macron over his opponent, Marine Le Pen.)  

In a perfect world it would never have come to this – the French presidential election too close comfortably to call. Macron, the forever clever one-time boy-wonder, should all along have been well ahead of the once rabid rightest, Le Pen.

By all accounts Macron was competent and, in many ways, successful, with an impressive list of accomplishments to his credit. Moreover, particularly as it pertained to Europe, he was a visionary in the French tradition. He unabashedly pushed for a strong Europe, spending a good deal of his political capital trying to unify disparate countries and cultures in a context that was largely inhospitable. Well, it was inhospitable until late February, when Russia’s president decided to invade Ukraine. When almost overnight nations from Germany to Poland, Sweden to Finland, rethought their European identities.

Still, as befits the smartest kid in the room, Macron lifelong has been seen as something of a snob, an elitist who was not only poor at working a room and playing to a crowd but didn’t much care. For the entirety of his term the French president has been seen as arrogant and remote, and as not much, if at all, interested in the day-to-day travails of the lower and working classes.

There is in addition the context in which Macron has led France for the last five years. Within France the electorate is badly divided or, arguably worse, alienated. Macron won the election – but with the lowest share of registered voters of any candidate since 1969. Further, until Ukraine was perpetual talk of “the crisis of liberal democracy,” in which, with rare exceptions, leaders of democracies have found it difficult to govern, and in which democracy itself has been more characterized by contentiousness than compromise. Finally, within Europe has been a shift to the right evident not only in France but in the East, where countries such as Poland and Hungary, both members of NATO and the European Union, have been led by men as autocratic as democratic.

But … things change. In this case two Big Things.

First, though a leopard can’t change his spots, there is evidence that Macron has been chastened. Chastened by his people – and chastened by an election that was uncomfortably uncertain. If he hasn’t learned a lesson – learned that he’d better pay his constituents more attention – he’s dumber than we thought.

Second, are the contexts. They have changed. France has been changed by Covid and by the first war on European soil in 75 years. Europe has been changed by having bet so heavily on the wrong horse – the Germans especially, who now look like idiots for having presumed Vladimir Putin a reliable partner on oil and gas. And the global order has changed. Americans are now clearly leading the charge against Russia, wanting explicitly permanently to weaken it. And China is being hobbled by fear of Covid, while that friendly agreement between China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Putin, signed just a few months ago, is now hardly worth the paper it was written on.

As I write the strongest European leader by far is the President of France. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is still wet behind the ears, scurrying to find his footing after succeeding the formidable Angela Merkel.  And the prime minister of England is not only sullied by, among other things, Partygate, he presides over a nation that after Brexit is no longer, not formally at least, a member of the European club.     

So, there you have it. If you’re at all interested in the future of Europe – as essential to the world order as to liberal democracy – France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, is the leader to keep your eye on.  

I’ve never counted. But seems to me the question I’ve been asked most frequently over the years is the one above. For a long time now my answer has been the same – “both.”

The leadership industry would have you believe that leaders are made. Everywhere it implies buy my book, take my course, attend my workshop, enroll in my program, come to my center, pay me to coach you, consult with you, teach you and preach to you and you too can be a leader. All of which might or might not be true – but only up to a point. Up to a point you can make of a sow’s ear a silk purse. But you can succeed in metamorphosing raw material only if you have something as opposed to nothing to work with.

It’s like anything else. You can learn how to be a better swimmer or a better piano player than you are. But you can only learn how to be a great swimmer or a great piano player if you have raw natural talent which, then, over time, is honed and sharpened.  Similarly, if Martin Luther King, Jr. ever took a leadership course I haven’t heard about it.

Some people are naturals at being a leader – just like some people are naturals at being anything else. This thought came to mind recently when I read an article about Hadas Fruchter, the pioneering Orthodox Jew who, at age 32, became the first Modern Orthodox woman anywhere to start and lead her own house of worship. (In Philadelphia, in 2019.)

Rabbinat Fruchter was described as a “natural leader.” What was meant by that? That she was the kind of student who was “all over the high school yearbook.” That she was president of her senior class. That she had the lead in school plays. That she was director of the girls’ choir. And that not many years later she was nothing less than a pathbreaker. Notwithstanding her Orthodoxy, she sought to be ordinated. She sought to be ordinated when Orthodox women were not permitted to do so.

When she was still a rabbinical student, Hadas Fruchter’s sermons and teachings were so impressive that she acquired a mentor. Originally, he brought her on as an intern, later she became an assistant spiritual leader. She was on her way to becoming a singular leader in the world of Orthodox Judaism.  

The evidence is that Rabbinat Fruchter was a natural. She was a leader in her girlhood. She is a leader in her adulthood. As a result of her seasoning Rabbinet Frucher is probably better at being a leader in her thirties than she was in her teens. Still, from the evidence we have, her talent for leadership was apparent from an early age. Not because her parents or teachers groomed her to be a leader. But because her gift for leadership was inborn.           

On November 23, 2018, I posted to this site a long piece titled, “Fiasco at Facebook.” (The link is below.) It was a systemic analysis (leaders, followers, and contexts) of how and why the once-fabled company had run into trouble. Since then, Facebook, recently renamed Meta, has, of course, in many ways performed brilliantly. What I was writing about though was not its business metrics, but its moral metrics. The company had already deviated from its original mission which was nothing if not high-minded: To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Moreover, in 2017, the company’s original mission was updated. This time it read in part: To  give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.   

In this crusade founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was joined early on by a woman whose title at Meta has long been chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg. What’s arguably most notable about Sandberg is that for years she was, in addition to her prominence as a corporate leader, a feminist icon.

In 2013 she came out with a book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, that instantly hit a nerve, and became a best seller. In subsequent years she capitalized on her feminist fame to expand on her franchise by, among other things, starting an international network of women. Leanin.org, as it was called, described itself as a “global community dedicated to helping women achieve their ambitions.” Since then, in the wake of the unexpected death of her husband, she (co) authored another book, this one titled, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy.  It too sold millions of copies, though it never rivaled its predecessor, nor was it especially embraced by women whose main interest was in advancing themselves in the world of work.

It would appear that Sandberg since has lost interest in feminism as a personal and professional cause. She remains deeply entrenched at Meta. The company has profited hugely from trafficking in misinformation. And Sandberg has long since become a billionaire. But not much out of her mouth about women and “the will to lead.”

All this comes to mind because in the last couple of days Sandberg hit the headlines in a way distinctly unsavory. It was reported that in both 2016 and 2019 she pressured the British Daily Mail to kill unflattering stories about her then boyfriend, Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. According to the Wall Street Journal, she seems to have succeeded in her efforts because both times the stories never ran.

The irony is obvious: the story Sandberg allegedly sought to stop was about a temporary restraining order against Kotick by a former girlfriend. In other words, the woman with a reputation as an advocate for women long had a man in her life accused of attacking a woman.

Meta is reportedly looking into the allegations and deciding if Sandberg violated company rules. But whatever the company’s verdict, it’s not a good look for a onetime, sometime, feminist icon.  

Fiasco at Facebook – A Systemic Analysis

I’ve written before about leaders clinging to power – all too often long after their sell-by date has expired.* Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan, is a case in point. He is now 66 years old. He has not always been in the best of health (throat cancer, last year emergency heart surgery). He’s been top dog at JPMorgan since 2006 – some 16 years. And, since 2007, he’s also boasted the title of chairman of the board.

First question: Why then is he still in a position of what in the world of banking is unrivalled power?

Answers: He wants to be. He remains good at what he does. His board has zero incentive directly to take him on. His shareholders are satisfied with his performance or, maybe better, satisfied enough. And there’s no statute of limitations on leaders who insist on continuing to lead.

Second question: What then is the problem? If a long-term leader like Dimon continues to perform well, and if his followers, including shareholders, are fine with it, why stir the pot? Why not leave Dimon alone on his throne?  

Answers: Though there are some exceptions to the general rule: leaders deteriorate over time. They get addicted to power; they get sclerotic; they get protected against dissention; they lose touch; they get rigid; they get self-aggrandizing; and far, far too often they get excessively rich. They become in a bubble of their own creation.

There should therefore be a norm: most leaders should be required to surrender their positions of power after a decade in power. They should be required to make way for new blood. This norm should apply across the board. To leaders in the public sector as well as the private one, to leaders in education, in religion, and in the military.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has served as senator from the state of Kentucky since 1985 – some 37 years. Think he’s past due to get up and get out? He clearly does not. He will not quit. He will not pick up his marbles and go home.

Times have changed a lot in the last decade, two decades, three decades. One of these is that people live longer. Dimon at 66 probably perceives himself a spring chicken!

Still, notwithstanding Dimon’s standing, are signs his subjects are getting a bit restless. First, investors generally are increasingly demanding that the chair and CEO roles be split. Second, in the case of JPMorgan specifically, a recent securities filing submitted by the bank said that a “substantial majority” of its investors wanted Dimon to stay as non-executive chair when he steps down as chief executive. The implication is that while Dimon will long into the future continue to chair the board, he will not so long into the future consent to step down as chief executive officer.

In 2018 Jamie Dimon was asked when he would retire. He replied in five years. In 2020 Jamie Dimon was asked when he would retire. He replied in five years. In 2021 Jamie Dimon as asked when he would retire. He replied in five years. By now a joke? Maybe. But not one I find funny.

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*https://barbarakellerman.com/leader-tenure/  

See if you agree with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. He, as you will see, argues, strenuously, yes.

Note: If you cannot read the text of the article here, you can google it under the title, “Why
We Admire Zelensky.”

A strongman is a particular type of leader. Historically mostly strongmen ruled the earth, though especially since the Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions, democracies have given autocracies a run for their money.  

Recently the word “strongman” has come back into fashion – with a vengeance. First, because in the last decade the number of autocracies worldwide has increased, while the number of democracies has decreased. And second, because of what was immediately dubbed “Putin’s War,” the war in Ukraine, which has dominated much of the world’s news cycle since Russia’s invasion on February 24.

We make a mistake, however, when we confine the word “strongman” to politics, typically to national leaders who are autocrats or despots.  Strongmen are everywhere in evidence – including in business. What is Elon Musk if not a strongman? What is Jeff Bezos if not a strongman? What are men like Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink and Ray Dalio if not strongmen otherwise (poorly) disguised?

Here’s a fraction of Elon Musk’s last week:  

• He disclosed that he bought a 9% stake in Twitter whereupon he was immediately named to Twitter’s board.* As soon as the news of his humungous investment became known, Twitter’s stock surged 27%.
• He announced that 194 billion hamsters can fit into Tesla’s spanking new factory in Texas. (Musk is of course Tesla’s founder and CEO.)
• He tweeted this and that to his astronomically high 90 million Twitter followers – over whom he is reputed to have considerable sway.
• And, oh, by the way, another company of which Musk is founder and chief executive officer, SpaceX, this week launched one retired astronaut and three paying customers into space. They are scheduled to dock at their designated space station on Saturday.

If ventures, adventures, like these, all in a seven-day period, don’t make Musk a strongman, please tell me who is. A strongman “leads or controls by force of will and character.” No military means or mechanisms necessary.      

*Several days after it was announced that Musk was joining the board, it was announced Musk was not joining the board. No reason was given for why the change.

For years Alexei Navalny has been Vladimir Putin’s fiercest, and most relentless, persistent, and prominent domestic opponent. As the links below testify, (they are a sample), I have written about Navalny regularly and frequently, including in a book that appeared a decade ago, The End of Leadership.  

Navalny has not been much in the news lately, in part because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And in part because he, who is already serving time in prison, was recently sentenced to another nine years, this time in a maximum-security facility.

Putin has been out to get Navalny for years. But each time, so far, he has failed. Putin has failed to kill Navalny or even completely to cripple him, though by locking him away for the indefinite future, Putin is trying to ensure that whatever Navalny’s voice that remains, will be silenced.

I am writing about Navalny today to draw attention to a film titled, “Navalny,” that is about to be released in the U.S. I have not yet seen it. But early word is it is as excellent as important.  Which means that for anyone with any interest in Russia under Putin, or in leadership and followership more generally, the film is must-viewing. Here a link to further information about the movie, “Navalny.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navalny_(film)

And, here links to a few of my earlier blogs in which Navalny makes an appearance:  

Alexei Navalny – The Real Deal

Putin Patrol Continued….*

Putin Patrol Continued…. His Nemesis Revisits

The good news for liberal democrats is by now familiar. In the last six weeks the ideal of liberal democracy has been revived by what is now at least the bastion of liberal democracy worldwide, Ukraine. Similarly, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been transformed not just into a hero but a savior.    

The bad news for liberal democrats is less familiar. It is that in elections held last weekend, in two other eastern European countries, one Hungary, the other Serbia, liberal democrats lost, and illiberal autocrats won.   

To the United States and most of Europe, Serbia is less important. It is smaller and less significant. More to the point, Serbia is not a member either of NATO or the European Union (EU). Still, it’s worth noting its incumbent president, Aleksandar Vucic, won a landslide victory not despite of his populist, pro-Russian stance, even after the invasion of Ukraine, but because of it. No surprise then, that in his victory speech Vucic said that while Serbia still hoped to join the EU, it would nevertheless continue its “friendly partnership with Russia.” And no surprise that in the wake of his victory, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, congratulated Vucic, especially on his “independent foreign policies.”

The fourth term win by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban presents the West with more of a problem. Unlike Serbia, Hungary is a member of both NATO and the EU, which explains why Orban has been a thorn in the side of both for years.

He is a self-styled “illiberal democrat” who rewrote the constitution, filled the top courts with his appointees, and changed the electoral system to his outrageous advantage. Hungary is, and has been for years, a country devoid of the institutional checks and balances, anything like a free press, and the competitive elections, that give meaning to the word “democracy.” No wonder after Orban’s landslide win Putin congratulated his pal – they met several times over the years – sending him a message that read in part, “Despite the difficult international situation, the further development of bilateral ties of partnership fully accords with the interests of the people of Russia and Hungary.”

Orban is a strongman at a moment when, notwithstanding the situation in Ukraine, strongmen are strong. They are everywhere in evidence, in capitals all over the world, from Beijing to Brasilia, from Ankara to Manila. Moreover, Putin himself is standing tall where to him it matters – in Russia. To be sure, polls out of Russia are not the most reliable. Additionally, there are several good explanations for why his numbers have recently gone up. They include: hundreds of thousands of his strongest opponents have left the country; those that are left are too scared openly to oppose him; he has made the media a closed shop; and the “rally ‘round the flag” effect, which means that during a crisis, especially a war, followers support whoever is their leader.

Still, since Putin’s people invaded Ukraine, his numbers went from high to even higher. In January his approval rating was 69%. By the end of March, it climbed to 83%.  A sobering reminder to Americans that our values are not universally shared. A sobering reminder to the American president that calling his autocratic counterpart a “war criminal” and a “butcher” might gratify some of the people some of the time. But it will not gratify all the people all the time.

We know that after World War II, most Germans denied knowing what had happened. Specifically, they denied knowing what had happened to European Jews: that by the millions they had been arrested, interned, tortured, and murdered. Jews from Germany and from most other countries in Europe, from East to West, from North to South.

The story outside Germany was somewhat similar. Most Americans said after the war they had no idea during the war that Jews were being systematically eliminated. While Germans’ pleas of “I didn’t know” were not generally persuasive, Americans who claimed ignorance were more convincing. In most cases were good reasons Americans did not know the Nazis were responsible for genocide, especially during the period 1942 to 1945.   

While we cannot now say how the war in Ukraine will end, what we can say now is that times have changed. We all know what is happening in Ukraine – which is precisely why we have become more involved in this bloody European conflict than in any that preceded it.

People with no obvious sources of power and authority – ordinary citizens – now feel entitled and emboldened to speak up and speak out. Partly this is the result of practice – social media give voice to anyone with anything at all to say. And partly this is the result of leaders deprived of their previous authority. In liberal democracies particularly, people no longer trust or admire their leaders, which is why we think ourselves the equal of those positioned as our superiors.

Changing technologies reinforce the changing culture. Give a person a voice that might resonate, chances are good that voice will be employed. I would not be writing this piece if I did not think someone would read it – someone from outside my immediate circle. Moreover, no expert, no pooh-bah, will edit or vet my prose. To get my piece “published” I need no one’s approval or assistance.  

One of the reasons why Russia has performed poorly in recent weeks is the remarkable level of support Ukrainians have received from people who are not Ukrainian – and who never before had anything remotely to do with Ukraine. In the West at least, countless millions are as furious as anxious that Goliath has threatened to destroy David for no good or obvious reason. Why are we so furious, so anxious? Because unlike during the Second World War we are not ignorant – nor can we possibly plead, ever, ignorance. In the West every sentient person – including every sentient American – is at least remotely aware of what is happening on Europe’s eastern flank.   

• Since the invasion, the calamity in Ukraine has dominated the American news cycle.  
• Since the invasion, Americans have been flying Ukrainian flags by the hundreds of thousands, from coast to coast.
• Since the invasion, some 400 American companies have pulled out of Russia, either ending their business in Russia altogether or sharply curtailing it.
• Since the invasion, one in four Americans have opened their wallets to respond to the crisis.      
• Since the invasion, hundreds of thousands of Americans have volunteered digitally to assist the Ukrainian war effort – to hack Russian government and military targets.
• Since the invasion, the U. S. government has approved an enormous spending package to support the Ukrainian war effort. As of mid-March, the total figure was $13.6 billion, some of the money going to weapons transfers and to support more U.S. troops in Europe; and some to economic warfare and humanitarian aid.   

Whatever bad is happening to Russia on the battlefield is being exaggerated and exacerbated by what is happening to Russia off the battlefield. This is a war unlike any other in the history of Europe. It is being fought not just by raw power – but by moral suasion. This time we know we don’t need a gun to fight the good fight. This time we know we have other arrows in our quiver.