Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States is the title of a small, highly influential book published in 1970, written by economist Alfred O. Hirschman. For a student of leadership and followership it provides a marvelously parsimonious model of the choices available to followers dissatisfied with their leader. They can choose privately, quietly, to quit the group. They can choose publicly, noisily, to quit the group but, at the same time, to voice their objection. Or they can choose, despite what they think and feel, to remain in the group.
This past weekend we had two examples of followers who chose to exit – and to voice. In both cases their leader was President Donald Trump. And in both cases the followers were leaders themselves who nevertheless concluded that whatever their own power and authority, it was dwarfed by that of the nation’s chief executive. Need evidence that Trump is a strongman? Read on.
The first example was the resignation under pressure by the President of the University of Virginia (UVA), James E. Ryan. UVA is one of the nation’s most prestigious public universities. Ryan, then, has held one of the most prestigious jobs in American higher education. Nevertheless, when the White House decided it wanted him to leave – because he was slow to dismantle policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion – leave he did. The administration had a couple of cudgels to wield – among them the threat of withholding large amounts of federal funding from UVA, and continuing investigations by the Justice Department. Still, when Ryan succumbed it was a shock.
Excerpt from Ryan’s statement:
I am writing, with a heavy heart, to let you know that I have submitted my resignation as President of the University of Virginia…. I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job. To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld….
If this were not so distinctly tied to me personally, I may have pursued a different path. But I could not in good conscience cause real and direct harm to my colleagues and our students in order to preserve my own position.
The second piece of evidence of against Trump – or for him, depending on your point of view – was the announcement yesterday by Republican Senator Thom Tillis that he would not run for reelection. Tillis chose to withdraw now from his next race (in 2026) because he knew that if he did not, he would be primaried – forced out of North Carolina politics by MAGA Republicans who detested his occasional resistance, such as now, to the president’s budget bill, to the Oval Office. Tillis is not, though, going quietly. He is exiting all right, but he is also speaking to the “hypocrisy in American politics.”
Except from Tillis’s statement:
When people see independent thinking on the other side, they cheer. But when those very same people see independent thinking coming from their side, they scorn, ostracize, and even censure them.
Too many elected officials are motivated by pure raw politics who really don’t give a damn about the people the promise to represent on the campaign trail. After they get elected, they don’t bother to do the hard work to research the policies they seek to implement and understand the consequences these policies could have on that young adult living in a trailer park, struggling to make ends meet.
As many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year, and at times even joked about, I haven’t exactly been excited about running for another term. That is true since the choice is between spending another six years navigating the political theater and partisan gridlock in Washington or spending that time with [my family]. It’s not a hard choice and I will not be seeking reelection.
Though their circumstances were different, in the end Ryan and Tillis were the same. Both were leaders forced out by a leader more muscular than they. And both were followers who reluctantly followed where Trump led. Finally, while both did voice their concerns, Ryan will be out this summer and Tillis next year.