Category: Digital Article

For those among us who think a second White House term for Donald Trump would be, shall we say, a disaster, one recent headline was especially alarming. It read, “Debate Night Barely Moved Needle in the Polls.” It was concerning not because most presidential debates do move the needle but because Kamala Harris won by so decisive a margin. In the immediate wake of the debate 67% of likely US voters said she did well in comparison with only 40% who said the same about him. So, Harris not only beat Trump in the debate she walloped him.

American voters are still relatively unfamiliar with her. Safe to say then that had Harris performed poorly on the debate stage her numbers would have suffered. Still, given her strong showing yielded no advantage, and given who is her opponent, one has to wonder, what’s going on here? Why isn’t Kamala Harris doing better than she is? In the wake of the Democratic Convention was exhilaration. Joe Biden was out of the picture, she looked good and sounded good, and Democrats were all fired up for what they hoped would be a great campaign. But a few weeks later, the presidential race looks more like a slog than a sprint.

Harris plays down her identity. But could be that it’s more important than she’s willing to admit, even to herself. She does not usually self-identify as a Black American (her father), or an Indian American (her mother), or a female American. But each of these identities matter, if not to her than to the American electorate. Consciously or unconsciously, it matters to voters that she would be, for example, the first American president who is a woman.

In my last post, “Male Leaders,” I wrote about the glaring difference between male leaders and female leaders as it relates to levels of aggression. “Male leaders and their followers are much more often and much more overtly aggressive than their female counterparts.” This certainly pertains to candidate Trump who almost invariably appears angry and combative, and whose followers skew more male than female. In a recent national poll women favored Harris over Trump by 21 points. If this figure stays approximately the same, on Election Day the gender gap will break all previous records.

However, this gap cuts both ways. Harris is more popular than Trump with women, but she is less popular than he is with men. Which raises the question, can Harris reel in more men? I would argue that she must try. That she must try to be less agreeable and more assertive. That she must try to be less feminine and more masculine. That she must try to be less general and more specific. That she must try to speak less about abortion and more about inflation. That she must try to smile less, to speak in a forceful cadence, and to appear stronger and even fiercer. She shouldn’t dump “the politics of joy” – it comes naturally to her. But instead of relentlessly playing joy up she should begin to play joy down.

Harris is in battle. Her opponent is prone to violence. It will not suffice for her to be, or to seem to be too ladylike, too female. She must be more androgynous, better at threading the needle between being a woman and being a man. We are, after all, in the land of the great apes, in which overwhelmingly it has been and still is males who rule the roost. This has implications for Harris – and for the American electorate.

I had occasion recently to be struck again by the difference between male leaders and female leaders – especially as it pertains to aggression. Neither the information nor the insight is new. It’s all over the relevant literature, including that on primates. Male leaders and their followers are much more often and much more overtly aggressive than their female counterparts – despite the distinction being one to which it appears we’re inured.

Among the reasons we forget it exists is the nature of work has changed. In large parts of the world the advantages male humans used to have of physical strength have diminished or even vanished. If you’re leading a company or a university, for example, physical strength plays little or no role in how you perform. Even if you’re leading a country, it plays no part or, more precisely, not one that is obvious. Joe Biden was not elected president of the United States in 2020 because of his physical strength or warrior-like personality. And it’s conceivable that though Kamala Harris is far smaller than Donald Trump, and cannot possibly replicate his inveterate swagger, she will defeat him in the November election.

But national leaders differ from other sorts of leaders in that they have proxies who are warriors. They have at their disposal militaries, and intelligence services, and weapons, many deadly. So, it is males leaders at the national level who are most likely to emulate their great ape analogues: males who are prone to aggression either because they want more sex or because they want more territory.

In both current wars in which the United States is most directly engaged – one between Ukraine and Russia and the other between Israel and Hamas – the leading actors are all male. Moreover, their primary prompt is for more territory. President Vladimir Putin’s original intention was to swallow Ukraine whole, to effectively annex it to Russia. And in response to the October 7^th attack on Israel by Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been determined to if not take over then rule over Gaza. 

In Sudan the civil war in which millions are being displaced and more are going hungry, males predictably are the protagonists. And the Democratic Republic of Congo – which for two decades has endured brutal civil strife – has the awful distinction of being known as “rape capital of the world,” with on average 48 women raped every hour, all by men determined to dominate them.      

This is not to suggest that female leaders are never aggressive. Sometimes they are, certainly when it comes to defending their young. Nor is it to imply that at the national level female leaders are weak or that they are pacifists. While their sample size is extremely small, women leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir remind us that gender is not, or at least not necessarily, a determinant.  

But it is to remind us of what we know. That among great apes – of which humans are one – males are more aggressive than females and that they are much more prone to violence. American politics is a current case in point. This is chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, Peter Baker, writing in yesterday’s paper.

“At the heart of today’s eruption of political violence is Mr. Trump….He has long favored the language of violence in his political discourse, encouraging supporters to beat up hecklers, threating to shoot looters and undocumented immigrants, mocking a near-fatal attack on the husband of the Democratic House speaker, and suggested that a general he deemed disloyal be executed…. He even suggested that the mob [on January 6^th, 2021] might be right to hang his vice president and has since embraced the attackers as patriots whom he may pardon if elected again.”

In his landmark book On Human Nature the preeminent sociobiologist, Edward O. Wilson wrote that “males are characteristically aggressive, especially toward one another,” and that the “physical and temperamental differences between men and women have been amplified by culture into universal male dominance.” Wilson’s book was written some fifty years ago, which means that some of what he wrote has been supplanted by different experts with different findings. But if there is evidence that his conclusion has been disproven, I’ve not seen it. Either in print or on the world stage.     

Germany’s Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is having a hard time of it. It is not that he is personally disliked and disrespected. He is not. Rather it is that he is politically disliked and disrespected. Friend and foe alike now think him an ineffective leader, incapable of leading Germans to where they need to go.

It is impossible to understand what has happened in Germany during the almost three years that Scholz has been chancellor by looking only at him. As always, to grasp the situation – to explain why fully 77% of the German people think him a “weak leader” – we must look at the system, at the leadership system. That is, we must look at 1) the leader; 2) his followers; and 3) the contexts within which the leader and his followers are situated.

The Leader

Let’s begin at the beginning. At the moment in December 2021 when Scholz took office. It was his bad luck to succeed a leader who was legendary. Her name was (is) Angela Merkel, a woman no less who had led Germany for 16 years. In retrospect Merkel made some serious mistakes – trusting Vladimir Putin highest on the list. But overall, she was highly admired, and she still is. Merkel would have been for the best of men a hard act to follow. But Scholz is not the best of men, certainly not the best political leader in a time when nearly all political leaders in Western democracies are having a hard time of it. He is smart but he is the antithesis of charismatic. He makes plans but then waffles when it comes to implementing them. He is out of his league when it comes to managing those who purportedly are his political partners.   

The Followers

Scholz’s approval ratings are the lowest of any German chancellor in 35 years. Is this because he is so awful, so dreadfully incompetent or maybe deeply unethical? No. Rather it is because Germans are like Americans, and for that matter like electorates in other Western democracies. Specifically, most of us are quick to carp and criticize people in positions of authority; and we are restless and rude, much, much more likely to diminish and demean our leaders than to praise and appreciate them. Similarly, Scholz’s coalition partners, who are acting more like nasty kindergartners than as responsible allies. As the Financial Times recently affirmed, “Tensions between [Scholz’s] partners in government … have reached new heights.” This in a country with an infamously difficult, dark history in which, to boot, a far-right party (Alternative for Germany) has recently made alarmingly strong gains.

The Context

Let’s get real. Whatever Scholz’s shortcomings he is not primarily responsible for the pickle in which Germany currently finds itself. The country that for decades was Europe’s most powerful economic driver, is now, to quote from a recent International Monetary Fund report, “struggling.” The report points out that last year Germany was the only one among its large European peers in which the economy shrank as opposed to expanded, and that this year’s prospects look equally bleak. Some of Germany’s problems are easily explainable and some, maybe, relatively easily remediable. But others are not at all amenable to quick fixes. Its population is aging, and the German people have been spoiled with generous benefits that will be politically exceedingly difficult to modify. (Just ask the CEO of Volkswagen, who as I write has his hands full trying to downsize the company’s workforce.) And, at a time when issues of national security are at the forefront of every country in Europe – think Russia’s unprovoked attack on Germany’s near neighbor Ukraine – Germany is not only lagging in its national defense but still torn about how far to deviate from its postwar passion for demilitarization.

Poor Olaf. He is not God’s gift to the German chancellery. But nor does he deserve being Germany’s whipping boy.

Who might you wonder? Eric Adams, who, since January 2022, has been Mayor of New York, which, despite not because of Adams, remains one of the world’s great cities.

In my book, Bad Leadership: What It Is, Why It Happens, How It Matters, I identified seven different types of bad leadership. Adams checks several of the boxes.

Here, however, I’ll keep it simple. Essentially bad/good leadership runs along two axes: one a continuum from ethical to unethical; the other a continuum from competent to incompetent. Adams is both unethical and incompetent. He reflects badly on himself, on his followers, and on the city that, unfortunately, he still leads.

At the end of last year Eric Adams already had the lowest approval ratings of any mayor in New York City’s history. And that was then.

Now we know more about how bad he really is. Specifically, we’ve been aware for some time that he was incompetent. That with him at the helm the city has foundered on housing, on immigrants, and on post-covid recovery, among its other chronic problems. We’ve also read, repeatedly, about Adams’s unfortunate personal life, in which he seems much to prefer partying with unsavory cronies to other forms of recreation.

 But what we have only recently begun to understand is how deeply corrupt is apparently the administration of Mayor Adams. To be clear, so far no one, including the mayor himself, has been charged with a crime. But what we do know now is that on his team was a cadre of characters who are targets of four separate federal investigations. Just yesterday New York City’s Police Commissioner resigned, Edward Caban admitting that “the news around recent developments has created a distraction for our department.”

Never when a leader is bad is it a small thing. When a leader of a major metropolis is bad it’s a big thing – and a sad thing.  Which raises the question, again, of what to do when a leader is bad.

How is she a leader? Let me count the ways.

1. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads artistically.
2. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads culturally.
3. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads stylistically.
4. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads socially.
5. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads economically. (Nationally and internationally, they pay hefty sums to see her perform.)  
6. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads financially. (She personally is now worth over a billion dollars.)
7. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads geographically. (They want to see her perform in such enormous numbers that they impact the economies of the cities in which she appears – globally.)
8. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads civically. (Within 15 hours after she posted voter registration information on Instagram the daily number seeking same went from an average of 40,000 to well over 300,000.)   
9. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads politically. (Within hours after her endorsement of Kamala Harris for president her post received 9.5 million likes.)
10. Taylor Swift’s gazillion followers follow where she leads personally. (They constitute one of the largest and most devoted fan bases in American history. And once she registers her preference for anything or anyone, in countless cases it becomes their preference.)

Many Swifties – as her hardcore followers are known – are too young to have a direct impact. Many are, for example, too young to vote or to spend their own money. But given there are legions of them, and given their high levels of participation and even passion, we make a mistake if we underestimate the power of their contagion. Swift is not like other celebrities. Right now at least she exerts influence like no other. Moreover, there are many other Swifties who are by no means too young to do what they want when they want – including following where she leads.

Swift’s endorsement of Harris within minutes after the debate between her and Donald Trump was over testifies to Swift’s civic engagement: she seems determined to do what she can to get Americans first to register to vote and then to get them to vote for Harris. Which leaves us with this question: Can she get other leaders to follow her lead? Will her example prompt others in positions of power to dare to make public their political preference?

Like leadership gossip? Like inside stories about how leaders operate behind closed doors? Like seeing Big Boys act like little children? Like watching mud wrestling? Like journalism at its juicy best?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, do I have an article for you!

But be forewarned. First, the piece is quite long, it’s not a five-minute read. Second, the piece is not about two 800-pound gorillas. Rather it’s about one 800-pound gorilla wrestling to the ground another gorilla who, however, is half his size. The name of the first ape is Bob Iger. The name of the second is Bob Chapek. Finally, you should know before you go that Mickey would be mortified.

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Here’s the link to the New York Times piece. If the link doesn’t embed, search for “Palace Coup at the Magic Kingdom,” by James B. Stewart and Brooks Barnes.

In my most recent book, Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers, one of the leaders on whom I focused was Martin Winterkorn. Winterkorn was chief executive officer of Volkswagen between 2007 and 2015. He presided over the company during virtually the entirety of its emissions scandal – Volkswagen regularly installed in its vehicles a “cheat device,” deliberately intended to mislead regulators on the number of pollutants being spewed in the air – blackening his name forever and Volkswagen’s for years thereafter.   

Winterkorn was not, of course, alone to blame. Bad leaders cannot function without bad followers. As I wrote in the book, “All his followers followed his [lead]. And a number were complicit from start to finish, including in the coverup. What happened at Volkswagen was then a consequence of bad leadership and bad followership. Both evolved over the years, and congealed over the years, from bad to worse.”  

But the buck stops at the top. Winterkorn was primarily responsible for what happened, responsible for being not only a corrupt leader – year after year he tolerated and tacitly supported an illegal scheme – but a callous one. Throughout his tenure at the top Winterkorn was personally and professionally arrogant, dependably rude and highly controlling.

Withal, until now, he got away with a slap on the wrist. Until now, like nearly every other executive found guilty of wrongdoing, he was able largely to escape the long arm of the law. However, just this week the worm turned. Finally! Winterkorn was obliged to appear in a German courtroom after the judge rejected his umpteenth appeal to postpone the trial on the grounds of poor health.     

Once upon a time, what seems long, long ago, Martin Winterkorn was Germany’s best known and highest paid chief executive. He was hard charging, intensely ambitious, and driven, so to speak, to beat every last one of his competitors. That was then. Now he is facing criminal charges that include fraud, market manipulation, and making false statements.

Given that on Winterkorn’s watch Volkswagen and its various units sold some nine million cars outfitted with illegal, deliberately deceptive software, it seems only fair and entirely fitting that at long last he’s being held to account. Would we could say the same of all highfliers who are wrongdoers.

The spectacle of Israel once again sundered by its own Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is deeply saddening but hardly shocking.  Quite the opposite. His persistence in power confirms yet again three timeless truths as they apply to all bad leaders. No matter which region or nation; no matter which time or place; no matter which group or organization; no matter which culture or sector.  

1. Most bad leaders are difficult to uproot.
2. The more time passes the more difficult it is to uproot them.
3. Bad leaders – all bad leaders – become worse if they are left in power to fester.

Do these truths suggest we have lessons to learn? They do.

One could make the case – and I have – that the study of followership was primarily prompted by the events of World War II. How was it possible, some social scientists started to ask a decade or so after the war ended, that citizens of a country as cultured as Germany followed – many highly eagerly and many others wildly enthusiastically – a leader as evil as Adolf Hitler? Hitler who was able, despite his being a genocidal, ultimately compulsively destructive dictator, to get most of his followers to do most his bidding most of the time – and of their own volition.

It’s a question that in the last seventy-five years has been asked, repeatedly. Though there are still thousands more books on Hitler specifically than on Nazis generally, there are now many studies not only about Germans during the 1920’s, ‘30s and ‘40’s, but about the historical context within which the Nazi era originally unfolded and ultimately unraveled.

Moreover, the fascination with ordinary people (to use Christopher Browning’s indelible phrase) during an extraordinary time persists. Which explains why we have a significant contribution to the literature, by a distinguished British historian of modern Germany, Richard J. Evans. As the title of his new book suggests – Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich – the focus here is not on Hitler. Rather it is on those who dedicated themselves, effectively slavishly, to doing what he ordered them to do.

After the first chapter, a long one about Hitler, Evans does what most of us who write about followers do – divide them into groups. Inevitably we find that all followers are not alike. Thus, the rest of the book is divided into three parts, each about a different type of follower. Evans does not use the word “follower.” He uses, as in the title, “people.” Nevertheless, followers is who we’re talking about here: dedicated Nazis who followed wherever Hitler led.

Part one is about “The Paladins,” men who were highest in the hierarchy and who were therefore, after Hitler, the most powerful people in the Third Reich. Most of the names in this section are familiar; they include Herman Goering, Heinrich Himmler, Albert Speer and Joseph Goebbels.  

Part two is about “The Enforcers.” They were less important than the Paladins but nevertheless key to executing orders given them from on higher. Most of these names are also familiar certainly to those who know the history of Nazi Germany; they include Rudolf Hess, Franz von Papen, Julius Streicher and Adolf Eichmann.

Finally, part three is about “The Instruments,” most though not all bourgeois Germans, too many of whom were found after the war to have committed “appalling crimes.” Like other scholars before him, Evans points out that it will not suffice to say that these people were “just obeying orders.” For in nearly all cases they had choices.     

Hitler’s People is recommended as a primer on Nazi followers of the Nazi leader. It is well written and clearly organized by an expert on Germany in the mid-twentieth century. But students and scholars of leadership and followership looking for information, or an angle, that is new or different will be disappointed. This is not because Evans is deficient. Rather it is because this ground is already very, very well covered. More to the point perhaps, there is no Rosetta Stone here, no key to understanding what happened, how it was possible for an entire people to either directly or indirectly sanction sadistic mayhem and murder.

Evans himself admits that “individual psychopathology is of little use here.” He further acknowledges that the “range of explanations … for why people supported Hitler and implemented, or accepted, Nazi policies and ideas is almost limitless.” What he falls back on then – for good reason – is the importance of context. Specifically, the rage for revenge engendered by the “humiliation” of Germany’s defeat in the first world war and, additionally, the subsequent rampant inflation.

What happened in Nazi Germany cannot, then, be understood without understanding the three parts of what I call the leadership system: the leader, the followers, and the contexts. Evans himself concludes that, “Only by situating the biographies of individual Nazi perpetrators, with all their idiosyncrasies and peculiarities, in these larger contexts, can we begin to understand how Naziism exerted its baleful influence.”      

I nearly never post just to draw attention to other articles.  But the piece to which I provide the link below – about a research paper of the same title as above – might well be of interest.

It’s about identifying good “managers,” not good “leaders.” I leave it to you to decide if in this case they are one in the same. And if not, why not? What’s the difference?

You want to be the boss. You probably won’t be good at it. — Harvard Gazette