Author: Barbara

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A good corporate citizen Apple is not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Anne-Marie Slaughter first became director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State, she had what she thought the perfect job. The work was fascinating, important, and right up her alley. Her husband and two young sons lived not far away, in Princeton, New Jersey. His position was such that he was able to be close to a full-time father. And Slaughter had what she herself has described as a “tremendously supportive boss,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But, after a time, Slaughter found her situation untenable. As she has repeatedly told, including in her book, Unfinished Business, once she perceived that her children needed her home more that she could possibly be while properly performing her job, she found her situation untenable – so she quit. Slaughter left her dream job to return for a time to the family fold.

Ironically, though their circumstances are different, the Vice Chairwoman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Huma Abedin, now finds herself similarly situated. Earlier today she announced her separation from Anthony Weiner, the former Congressman who is, again, ensnared in a sexting scandal. While I cannot know for certain, it seems reasonable to surmise that Abedin stuck it out for so long with Weiner, who has a troubling history of aberrant behavior, because, in addition to her all-consuming job, she has a young son.

By every account, she and Clinton, who have worked together for twenty years, are exceedingly close. But this will not save Abedin from having to make a choice similar to the one that Slaughter faced. Both women were elevated by Hillary Clinton to positions of singular prominence – which, however, did not spare both women from having to make a singularly difficult decision. There is no reason to presume that Abedin will decide as Slaughter did, to leave Clinton’s side to be with her child. But it would not surprise me if she did or if, at least, she opts to considerably lessen her professional commitment, at least for now.

It’s too early to come to firm conclusions. But it’s not too early to make preliminary assessments. Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House is not over. But, but it is almost over. So safe to rate the following:

• History will give Obama high marks for character. There is every evidence that he is a man of rectitude.
• History will give Obama high marks for temperament. There is every evidence that he is serious, stable, and psychologically secure.
• History will give Obama high marks for dignity. There is every evidence that he behaved throughout his time in the Oval Office in keeping with the nation’s highest office.
• History will give Obama low marks for interpersonal skills. There is every evidence that he failed to use his considerable personal charm, or even the perks of his presidential office, to firm his domestic political alliances, and, or, to win over his domestic political opposition, most obviously members of Congress.
• History will give Obama low marks for foreign policy. His deeply ingrained reluctance to use American power, or to even threaten to use it, has not served the West well. Moreover, America’s willingness to stand by and do nothing while the catastrophe that is Syria continues to drag on, will forever stain his presidency.
• History will give Obama high marks for domestic policy. Not so much for the passage of legislation – though he has had major legislative victories, including the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Act – as for his use of executive power. Once Obama realized that if he was to continue to create change, he would have to do so without the benefit of a partnership with Congress, he took the regulatory route – full speed ahead. To quote from the New York Times, once Obama got a taste of it, “he pursued his executive power without apology, and in ways that will shape the presidency for decades to come.”* During his first seven years in office the president finalized 560 major regulations – nearly 50 percent more than did his predecessor during the comparable period. In coming years, Obama’s full-throated embrace of executive power will be seen as a significant extension of the reach of presidential leadership. During a time in which getting followers to go along is a task increasingly onerous, being able to create change without exercising presidential leadership in the traditional sense, will be an option attractive not only to the incumbent, but to his successors as well.

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*Binyamin Applebaum and Michael D. Shear, “How the President Came to Embrace Executive Power,” August 14, 2016.

Far be it from me to blame the victims. The culture at Fox News was toxic. And the punishment for doing anything but kowtowing was potentially professionally lethal.

Still, it is impossible for someone like me to look at what happened at Fox without raising the subject of followership. Without raising the subject of what happens when a wretchedly bad leader succeeds in frightening followers into remaining mute.

Ever since former Fox Anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment suit against former Fox behemoth Roger Ailes, former Fox women (and one prominent present woman) have come out of the woodwork. More than twenty women – 20! – finally came forward to say that Ailes had sexually harassed them, in some cases decades ago.

Which raises the question: Why did these women stay silent for so long? Why did they stay silent until after Gretchen Carlson went public?

It’s clear that Carlson’s decision go public and hold power accountable emboldened the others. Moreover, it’s clear why they waited for someone else – someone who, not incidentally, had already been professionally successful – to take the risk.  But let’s be clear. Had these victims spoken out sooner, Fox’s miserably misogynistic culture and its miserably misogynistic leader would sooner have been upended.

Followers matter. Not just leaders.

So sayeth Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management. (Quoted in the Wall Street Journal, August 10.)

Is he scary – or funny?! I suspect that Professor Sonnenfeld regrets his remark, which looks perfectly foolish on paper. After all, we now have thirty plus years of extensive research and writing on women and leadership – so it’s not exactly as if they’re an unknown species, only recently emerged from under a rock.

The article focused – yet again, ho-hum – on Marissa Mayer. But here’s what’s interesting. While we fixate on a handful of female stars – one Hillary Clinton comes to mind – the numbers stay stubbornly the same. There are some exceptions to this general rule – about which more another time – but by and large the number of women at or even near the top remains low. To take just a single random example, the number of women on the boards of the United Kingdom’s largest companies is just over 25%. This figure is hardly any higher than it was in 2011, when a 25% target was initially set. (The target has since been updated, to 33% by 2020.)

Here’s my point. It’s not that we’re “just learning how to understand women as leaders.” We understand a lot about “women as leaders.” It’s just that we don’t see a lot of women as leaders. There’s a distinction, in other words, between what we know and what we see. It’s a distinction Professor Sonnenfeld would do well to bear in mind.