Author: Barbara

Here are some of the numbers:

Since the failed coup in Turkey last weekend, President Recip Tayyip Erdogan has started to take revenge:

• Some 33,000 members of the military, including 103 generals and admirals, have been detained or dismissed.
• Some 15,000 employees of the education ministry have been suspended.
• Some 20,000 teachers have had their licenses revoked.
• Some 1,500 university deans have been forced to resign.

Let’s be clear here: though the headlines scream Erdogan, Erdogan, Erdogan, such numbers are not his handiwork alone. Ask yourself this: how many people does it take to depose or dispose of 70,000 people in less than seven days?

Here are some of the facts:

• Volkswagen’s current CEO, Matthias Mueller, has been implicated in the use of emissions cheating devices in VW’s diesel cars.
• Volkswagen’s previous CEO, Martin Winterkorn, has been implicated in the use of emissions cheating devices in VW’s diesel cars.
• Some Volkswagen board members have been implicated in the use of emissions cheating devices in VW’s diesel cars.
• Some Volkswagen engineers have been implicated in the use of emissions cheating devices in VW’s diesel cars.
• Some Volkswagen upper and middle level managers have been implicated in the use of emissions cheating devices in VW’s diesel cars.

Let’s be clear here: though the headlines scream Volkswagen, Volkswagen, Volkswagen, this is not an organizational abstraction. Ask yourself this: how many people does it take to execute for so long company policy so obviously fraudulent?

No use obsessing about bad leaders when what we have is bad leadership. When what we have are leaders and followers engaging in wrongdoing by acting in tandem.

Never before have so many leaders been so vulnerable to so many followers. Never before have so many leaders been reactive and so many followers proactive. Never before have single individuals who appear on the surface to be powerless been so powerful.

Some of the reasons why fixating on leadership while ignoring followership is dumb.

Those who insist that women leaders are better at exercising “soft” skills such as communicating, collaborating, cooperating and, yes, unifying, have their chance of a lifetime. Literally. For the future of the European continent lies in the hands of Germany’s longstanding Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Britain’s brand new Prime Minister, Theresa May. This is not to say that, for instance, the French, Italian, Greek or Polish presidents will be bystanders. Rather it is to say that in this particular drama, the drama that is the future of the European Union, the two leaders who matter most are women.

Though May has been compared to her predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, the comparison is misleading. A much closer parallel is with her current counterpart, Merkel. Both women are the daughters of clergy. Both women are in marriages of longstanding. Both women are childless. Both women have leadership styles that are efficient and pragmatic, highly disciplined and hard-working, and so sober and steady as to verge on the downright dull. Finally, both women are centrists, ideologically and temperamentally.

Ironically, the single exception to this general rule could be the sticking point between them – immigration. By admitting into Germany in a period of about one year one million mainly Middle Eastern refugees and asylum seekers, Merkel deviated dramatically from a lifetime of political caution. Trouble is that this is the issue, immigration, on which May will be obligated to take rather a hard line. For as the result of the recent British referendum attested, it is this issue, arguably more than any other, that matters to May’s constituents. Fear of immigrants is why the Brits voted to exit the European Union rather than to remain.

So Merkel is invested in comparative hospitality to immigrants, while May is invested in comparative hostility to immigrants. But… both are also invested in the future of Europe. In Europe more united than divided. In Europe more peaceful than tribal. In Europe more prosperous than penurious. In Europe of the future – heaven forefend not Europe of the past.

Interested in women and leadership? Get a ringside seat!

In my 2012 book The End of Leadership, was a chapter titled “Technological Imperatives – Losing Control.” The point of the chapter was that information technologies were changing the balance of power between leaders and followers. Social media were distributing information, enabling expression, fostering connection, and inciting action – all of  which were enfeebling leaders and empowering followers.

Then vision became part of the equation. Once cameras began to bear witness, on the spot and in real time, followers had leaders, authority figures, in an even tighter vise.

Turns out that under certain circumstances confrontations caught on cameras bestow power on the previously powerless. Two years of violent encounters between black citizens and police officers – caught on camera – changed the dynamic between them.

• In 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, it was video filmed by a bystander that showed Michael Brown lying in the street after being shot and killed by a police officer.
• In 2014, in Cleveland, Ohio, it was a surveillance video that showed a police officer firing at 12-year old Tamir Rice at close range. Rice later died.
• In 2015, in Pasco, Washington, it was a cellphone video that showed Antonio Zabrano-Montes running away from police officers when they shot him fatally.
• In 2015, in North Charleston, South Carolina, it was again a bystander who filmed an officer shooting Walter Scott in the back as he ran away. Scott was pronounced dead at the scene.
• In 2015, in Prairie View, Texas, it was a dashboard camera that captured a state trooper stopping Sandra Bland for a traffic violation. A confrontation between them escalated. She was arrested – and later found dead in her jail cell.
• In 2015, on the campus of the University of Cincinnati, it was an officer’s body camera that captured him shooting and killing Samuel Dubose during a traffic stop.
• In 2016, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, it was a cellphone video that showed Alton Sterling being tackled and held by police officers. Gunshots were heard, Sterling died at the scene.
• In 2016, in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, a front-seat passenger captured on camera the police shooting of Philandro Castile and streamed live near the entire episode.

Because of new video technologies at least some of what was covert now is overt. Because of new video technologies at least some very old grievances are at long last being addressed. Because of new video technologies at least some without power and influence have acquired some power and influence. Seeing is believing.

Hillary Clinton will not face criminal charges relating to her use of classified information while serving as Secretary of State.

But her political opponents and ideological enemies will still make hay out of what the New York Times described as FBI Director James Comey’s “extraordinary public tongue-lashing.” Comey rebuked Mrs. Clinton for being “extremely careless,” and made plain that a typical government official would probably have been penalized for doing no more than what she did. Put differently, in ordinary circumstances, Hillary Clinton’s original transgressions, and her subsequent cover up, would have and should have ended her political career.

But these are not ordinary circumstances. In November will be a presidential election in which the American people will have two options: Clinton or Trump. This better than anything else explains why Comey did what he did. By walking a fine line – on the one hand not recommending criminal charges; and on the other hand engaging in public castigation – he acted in a way he thought right. He said his piece – but stopped short of upending the presidential election.

There is scholarly research suggesting that women leaders are somewhat more ethical than men leaders. Really? Judging by recent events, you’d never know it. As I said in this space a couple of days ago, “Those few women who make it to the top have a special responsibility to behave in ways that live up to their own highest ideals.” It’s not a responsibility that Loretta Lynch has met. Or Samantha Power. Or Hillary Clinton.

Sad.

UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Attorney General Loretta Lynch are among the most high-profile appointees in the Obama administration. This, in addition to the posts they hold, means they are among the most powerful women in American politics.

Which makes it especially disturbing when their fealty to the president compromises their judgement – and their independence.

By remaining in her post for the last three years, Ambassador Power has been precluded from doing the kind of work for which she previously was best known: railing against those who stand by and do nothing (or close to it) in the face of political murder and mayhem, as in the case of the war in Syria.

Though the analogy is weak, Attorney General Lynch nevertheless resembles Power in that she too caved in to what she believed, for whatever reason, her boss would want her to do – meet off the record with former President Bill Clinton who, you might know, is the husband of Hillary Clinton who, you might know, is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States who, you might know, is under federal investigation for using a personal e mail account while Secretary of State.

Unfair it may be that female leaders be held to higher standards of personal and public probity than male leaders. But so long as there are so few women in positions of power, authority, and influence, that’s the way it is. Put directly, those few women who make it to the top have a special responsibility to live up to their own highest ideals.

One of America’s most prominent poultry farms yesterday announced plans to make both life and death better for its chickens. It was agreeing to change, to make more humane, the way it raises and slaughters its birds.

Why? To his credit, Jim Perdue, CEO of Perdue Farms, was straightforward in his explanation. It was not a his sudden concern for animal welfare. Rather it was that his customers, “want to be sure that animals are raised in as caring a way as possible. With the least stress, the least discomfort.” Who more precisely are these customers? They are millennials, younger consumers who tend to care more about animal rights than do their elders.

Which brings me to Britain’s referendum. When the numbers were crunched it was clear that the young voted dramatically differently from the old. Fully 73 % of those aged 18 to 24 voted to REMAIN in the European Union – compared with only 40 % of those over 65.

This difference is huge! Clearly Jim Perdue was onto something. Leaders who want actually to lead had better pay attention. To their followers – to how old they are.

How many explanations for the stunning outcome of Britain’s referendum? Here’s a baker’s dozen:

1. The rise of populism.
2. The rise of nationalism.
3. The rise of tribalism.
4. The antipathy toward globalization.
5. The antipathy toward immigration.
6. The antipathy toward free trade.
7. The antipathy toward the European Union.
8. The antipathy toward the Establishment.
9. The antipathy toward London.
10. The generational divide.
11. The class divide.
12. The regional divide.
13. The income divide.

I could go on – the list of explanations or excuses, depending on how you look at it, is even longer. But what the list never includes is the trajectory of history.

More’s the pity. For had we put this vote in an historical context, even before it took place, not only would we after the vote better understand what happened, before the vote we would have better predicted the future by extrapolating from the past.

One of the shocks of Brexit was the shock of Brexit – the fact that it was not foretold by pollsters or markets, not even by bookies. Which raises the question of why was everyone so off? Why were even the best and the brightest shocked and then stymied by the outcome?

Because we are ahistorical. If we were not, we would know that the balance of power between leaders and followers has been changing for hundreds of years, with the former becoming relentlessly weaker and the latter relentlessly stronger. The only way to preclude this from happening – we see this, for example, in Russia, China, Egypt and Turkey – is for the leadership class to clamp down. If it does not, as it generally does not in Western Democracies, we should not be surprised to see leaders upended.

Ordinary people now seem to enjoy  nothing so much as giving the finger to those positioned higher than they. In the workplace, of course, they are precluded from making a gesture so rude. But not in the commons. In the commons, in politics, giving the middle finger seems to be cost free. And it gives instant gratification.

So sang Donald Trump this morning in, of all places, Scotland! In Scotland, where he just happens to be on this historic day, celebrating the refurbishing of one of his golf courses.

To Trump the outcome of the British referendum has to be heartening. For the dynamics there are similar in important ways to the dynamics here.  A divided country. An angry electorate. A strong sentiment against the leadership class.

In Britain virtually every leader in virtually every sector strongly urged the electorate to vote for the status quo – to vote for Britain to remain in the European Union. Still, voters rejected their entreaties, as if deliberately thumbing their nose at those higher and mightier than they.

Just the kind of thing on which Trump thrives. Just the kind of thing that can turn an election on its head.

This is an historic day. The stunning outcome of the British referendum was that in two years time Britain will be severed from the European Union.

I do not use the word “historic” lightly. Nor do I use the word “revolution” lightly. But this vote is an indicator of change that is revolutionary, not evolutionary. Which is why it is historic.   The old, existing order is dead, and in its place is something new.  Driven by impulses variously described as nationalist and populist, driven by sentiments strongly anti authority, the British electorate has made its preference clear. On the assumption that the future will somehow, in some undetermined way, be better than the present, what was goes.

• This vote means that the United Kingdom will never be the same. Among other likelihoods is that in the not distant future the Scots will vote to exit.
• This vote means that Europe will never be the same. Among other likelihoods is that referendums similar to Brexit will be in other countries in Europe.
• This vote means that the global order will never be the same. Among other likelihoods is that Russia will create a wedge between Britain on the one hand, and the European Union on the other.
• This vote means that the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States will never be the same. Among other likelihoods is that the US will discover it has no choice but to find another European partner.
• This vote means that the present resident at 10 Downing Street will go.  We know for sure that in short order David Cameron will be replaced as prime minister.
• This vote means that anger against people in positions of authority – both in Europe and in the United States – is unlikely anytime soon to dissipate.   Among other likelihoods is that just as Donald Trump’s candidacy was seeming seriously to weaken,, what’s happened in Britain will give him a shot in the arm.

I said before and will say again. As a result of Brexit the short term occupation is with markets. But as a result of Brexit the long term preoccupation will be with politics. As of today they have changed completely and irrevocably.