Author: Barbara

I have been a member of the faculty of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government since 2000.

On November 5, 2014, Harvard’s President, Drew Faust, sent to members of the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) community a letter informing them, us, of the search for a new dean. Candid counsel was being sought from faculty, students, staff, alumni, and knowledgeable others. But, the advisory group for the search had already been established. It consisted of nine senior faculty from HKS, and four faculty from other parts of the University

One day later I sent to President Faust a letter that raised questions about the search process. In particular, I wondered why the only advisory group members from HKS were senior faculty. After all, the Harvard Kennedy School has 188 faculty, the large majority of whom are not senior. Moreover, HKS is a community that includes, in addition to faculty, more than one thousand students who are enrolled full time in its master’s degree programs. It further includes some 470 staff, who are critical to the School’s mission. I therefore suggested to President Faust that she might diversify the advisory group to include, for example, some faculty who were other than senior, and at least one or two students and one or two staff. The new HKS dean will, after all, lead not only senior faculty, but everyone affiliated with the Kennedy School.

President Faust replied to my letter, thanking me for my views, but reiterating that while she hoped to benefit from input from a range of people, she would continue to rely on the advisory group as originally constituted.

The purpose of this piece is not to extend this exchange, or to focus on HKS in particular. It is to suggest that the process of searching for all Harvard’s deans’ should be changed. In her letter of November 5^th President Faust wrote that by establishing an advisory committee composed in the main of HKS senior faculty, she was following Harvard’s usual practice. My argument is that it’s time for this usual practice, this past practice, to change.

It is now widely agreed that search processes are fairer and better if they are led by groups that are diverse. In fact, in October 2014, Harvard Senior Vice-Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity, Judith Singer, distributed a document titled “Faculty Development & Diversity.” While this document pertains obviously only to faculty, its conclusions are broadly applicable. In particular, search committees and, presumably, advisory committees should include members “from diverse backgrounds, who may have helpful – and divergent – ideas that can enhance efforts to recruit and evaluate candidates…. Research shows that committees of individuals with diverse perspectives make better decisions.” (Italics mine.) This conclusion has been by now widely confirmed, yet again in a recent book, Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter, co-authored by Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein: “When dissent and diversity are present and levels of participation are high, groups are likely to do a lot better.”

Of course this raises the question of what constitutes diversity. Harvard, along with many other institutions, tends to think of diversity primarily in terms of women and minorities. (In this case diversity could also be construed to mean inclusion of faculty from other Harvard Schools.) But, especially as it applies to the search for a dean, to the search for a leader of the whole, the word “diversity” should be much more broadly defined. Advisory groups or committees charged with assisting Harvard presidents in their searches for new deans should include, at a minimum, a few faculty who are other than senior, plus some students and some staff.

Time has come to ditch Harvard’s past practice in searches for new deans. Time has come to update past practice so that it takes into account the latest research. Time has come for the process to be modernized and democratized – to be less exclusive and more inclusive.

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

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

Excerpt from Chapter 4 – Politics

“Still, there is a pervasive sense, largely justified, that even if [government is] working, it is not working as well as it should, or nearly as well as it did. This matters of itself – and it matters because our opinion of leaders in government affects our opinion of leaders more broadly. Disappointment in the former tends to contaminate our view of the latter. It’s one of the reasons why leadership in twenty-fist century America is so difficult to exercise: the political culture generally, and political leaders specifically, have poisoned the well.

What’s happened? What’s gone wrong? More particularly, what’s gone wrong during the past half century when Americans’ trust in government and in those who people it, particularly at the federal level, have plummeted? The reasons fall into two categories: exogenous, external to politics; and endogenous, internal to politics – that is, to politicians and the political system.”

France has been agog in recent weeks over the trail of Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of, among other things, pimping. Perhaps as a respite from the tragedies of terrorism, the country supposedly known for its blasé approach to matters of love and lust has been fixated on the sexual predilections of the man who, until just a few years ago, was head of the International Monetary Fund and possible successor to then president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy.

The trial of Strauss-Kahn is a turning point. It’s the first time the French have intruded so boldly and brazenly on what once was considered a zone of privacy – the erogenous zone. It’s become known that Strauss-Kahn had a disposition toward rough sex, which now he neither denies nor disowns. Clearly a boundary has been crossed: French leaders, no matter how highly placed, have become vulnerable not only to having their private affairs made public, but to having their sexual proclivities put on public view.

Younger Americans might see this as something new and different. But older Americans will remember the year 1998, when the national obsession was with President Bill Clinton’s relationship with a 21 year old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. What was most titillating, trailblazing, was not the relationship itself – by then we knew full well that American presidents had had sex with women other than their wives – but the details about the relationship. For the first time even the media establishment provided the American people with facts – say, the stain on the blue Gap dress – that previously would have been kept strictly private.

On the surface this seems a small matter – a sign of the times with no major significance. I, however, argue differently. I argue that one of the reasons leaders don’t get no respect is that we have come to know too many too well. Detailed descriptions of men with their pants down do not contribute to a leadership culture in which subordinates see superiors as better than they.

George W. Bush will forever be blamed, at least in part, for the calamity that has become Iraq. Barack Obama will forever be blamed, at least in part, for the calamity that has become Syria. The question is … will Hillary Clinton forever be blamed, at least in part, for the calamity that has become Libya?

In the three and one half years since the U.S. participated in, or, better, led, a coalition to oust Libya’s Col. Muamaar el-Qaddafi, the country has become a dangerously failed state. Despite its huge reserves of oil, its vast financial assets, and its long coastline just across the sea from Europe, Libya has no effective government or even dominant force. This leaves it desperately vulnerable to rival coalitions, including the likes of ISIS, all of which are fighting for control, apparently to the death.

Libya has been Hillary Clinton’s Achilles Heel at least since the tragedy at Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including the Ambassador. But Benghazi was a single incident. What’s happening now in Libya, to Libya, is dreadfulness of a different magnitude entirely.

This is not the place to retrace Hillary Clinton’s steps in the decision to depose Qaddafi. However it is the place to provide a few relevant quotes from her book, Hard Choices, about being Secretary of State during Barack Obama’s first term.

Chapter 16 is titled, “Libya: All Necessary Measures.”

First Clinton tells us that she thought Qaddafi “one of the most eccentric, cruel, and unpredictable autocrats in the world.”

Then she writes that she began to wonder as did many of her foreign counterparts, “Was it time for the international community to go beyond humanitarian aid and sanctions and take decisive action to stop the violence in Libya?’

Next she describes some Arab states and some European ones as eager to intervene. French President Sarkozy, for example, was “gung-ho,” and the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, “pressed the case for action.”

As well, key allies within the administration, notably then UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and then National Security Council aide Samantha Power, made a strong argument “that we had a responsibility to protect civilians and prevent a massacre.”

Before long the U.S. again was intervening – the attack against the Libyan government was on. Although, Clinton writes, “the military campaign in Libya lasted longer than any of us had hoped or expected,” in the end it was seen at the time as successful. By late summer of 2011, “the rebels had pushed back the regime’s forces. They captured Tripoli… and Qaddafi and his family fled into the desert.”

I am not writing to indict. I am writing to point out that any number of Democrats, along with any number of Republicans, mistakenly thought that deposing a dictator from without would solve an admittedly agonizing problem. I am writing to point out that though the buck stopped with Obama, his first secretary of state played a particularly prominent role in America’s decision to take military action in Libya. I am writing to point out that if we’re in the business of blaming for related mistakes, there’s no excuse for excluding from the accused Hillary Clinton.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excerpt from Chapter 3 – Religion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except from Chapter 2 – Ideology  

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

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

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

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

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