Friedrich Merz was just elected chancellor of Germany. But what a miserable start! For the first time in Germany’s modern history the candidate was humiliated on the first vote, denied the chancellorship by parliament. While he mustered the necessary votes on the second round, Merz’s authority as leader of Germany was compromised even before he left the gate.
So, what else is new? Democratic leaders everywhere and in every sector are finding leading tough sledding. Don’t believe me? Ask Katrina Armstrong, who lasted for all of seven months as interim president of Columbia University. Don’t believe me? Ask Rishi Sunak, who lasted less than two years as British Prime Minister. Don’t believe me? Ask Ashley Buchanan who was just booted out as CEO of Kohl’s after five months.
Don’t believe me? Look at the numbers. Rising rates of top tier turnover are everywhere. A recent headline in the Wall Street Journal: “More CEOs Head to the Exits.” Last year some 373 leaders of publicly held companies left their jobs, up almost 25 percent from a year earlier. It’s a remarkably high figure – especially given the rewards they receive. Lots of authority. Lots of money. Lots of perks from private planes to corner tables. Still, CEOs who are very well fed but very fed up are heading for the exits in unprecedented numbers.
Which raises the question of why. What is it about this moment – the third decade of the 21st century – that makes democratic leadership so difficult?
The piece in the WSJ provides a few answers including the fresh challenges of AI, tariffs, and the scrutiny of diversity. In the end though the piece leaves us wondering. Hard to deduce from its description of the syndrome why what’s happening is happening, especially since it applies not only to leaders at the top but to managers in the middle. Apparently “the leadership issue extends beyond the C-suite. The pipeline of up-and-coming executives is thinning.”
Part of the piece is however about stress – about how many at the top are so sick of the stress they quit – that seems to me to be key. Leaders are more stressed now, much more stressed now, than they used to be.
Which raises the all-important question of where their stress comes from. Why are leaders more anxious today than yesterday? More now than a generation ago? Yes, AI is a big issue, and so are tariffs, and so is this, and so is that. But are these challenges so much greater than those faced by CEOs in the mid to late 20th century, or in the early 21st? Or is something else going on?
To these questions I have, no surprise, an answer. In the past, CEOs of large publicly held companies were compensated for their labor in two ways: remuneration and respect. They got lots of the first and, in addition, lots of the second. Now they still get plenty of the first – but nearly none of the second.
Same holds for democratic leaders everywhere. They still get well paid, but they get little if any respect. We as soon tear leaders down as build them up. In the old days presidents of colleges and universities were, for example, shielded from the riff raff by the ivory towers within which they were ensconced. Now no longer. Now nothing protects them against the people – the press and the public; parents and politicians; alums, faculty, students, administrators and donors. Everyone wants a piece of them.
Bottom line is it’s tough out there. Most leaders get good money. In some cases, outrageously good money. But most even of them get no respect. We are quick, extremely quick, to trash our leaders. We are slow, extremely slow, to respect them.