It’s not often that I read something about leadership that seems somehow new. Nor do I claim the following insight is rocket science. Still, the emphasis it received in a recent column by New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin is worth underscoring.
At a conference earlier this month Sorkin interviewed some of the world’s most powerful leaders, including Ukraine’s President Volodymir Zelensky, Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Amazon’s chief executive Andy Jassy. (Sorkin also spoke with the now notorious jailbird, founder, and former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried.)
Sorkin found there was one theme that came up repeatedly: “It was that every decision – big and small – is ultimately a trade-off.” Sometimes that trade-off is moral, other times it is political or economic; sometimes it is a one sort of trade-off for another sort. The public is often unaware of these trade-offs, but the decision maker feels them acutely. He or she is usually, sometimes painfully aware costs will be incurred.
In his column (link below) Sorkin provided several examples, of which recently reelected Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was perhaps the most vivid. Netanyahu has been reluctant to provide Ukraine – which in the abstract he would support – with missile systems because he feels obliged to preserve his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Why? Because it enables Israel to maintain its access to Syrian air space (which Russia controls), access that Netanyahu believes of “existential importance to his people.”
Netanyahu: “There is always a balance. Leaders do this every day. In general, foreign policy and democracy is a combination of moral principles and expediency. What assumes primacy? Interests or values? The answer is neither. You balance the two.”
None of this is said in admiration of Netanyahu. Not hardly. But the trade-offs to which he correctly alludes are a key reason leaders find it difficult to lead. While often people are not aware of the trade-offs, often they are aware of their consequences. Israel’s foot-dragging on helping the Ukrainians is, for example, making a lot of people in a lot of places very unhappy.
In political science the word “realpolitik” is a familiar one. It refers to politics based on practical, as opposed to moral or ideological considerations. Leaders like Netanyahu, who consciously engage in tough trade-offs, are practitioners of the art. They are realpoliticians – and they are everywhere.
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