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.