Exit Stage Left
With COVID-related deaths now exceeding 250,000 in the United States, the news is once again dominated by by two things, the manner of reaction being taken to combat the virus, and the lack of enablement by the current Trump administration insuring a smooth transition of power to the new Biden administration, especially vis-a-vis management of the Coronavirus battle. Rather than celebrating the impact that Project Warp Speed might have had on the encouragement of the development of vaccines, Trump is stuck in his self-centered anger at being shunned by America and his refusal to accept gracefully that it is time to move on and pass the reins of authority to someone else.
As an organization man my whole career, I have always believed that excellence in management starts in recognizing the subservience of self to the needs of others. The General always sleeps and eats last. The best leader is the one who takes honor for laying the foundation for greater success of his successor. The top priority of every chieftain is to insure that he has a worthy successor who can carry on the needs of the organization for the perpetuation of the mission. Trump was obviously never raised or inculcated along the way into this form of thinking. It is said he does not live either in the past or in the future, but only in the present and only in the narrow confines of his feelings of the moment. There are many names for this in the realms of psychology and we have heard them all in the last five years. Narcissism, sociopathy, arrogance, self-absorption, selfishness, egomania, presumption, self-importance, self-possession, and self-regard. None of these are traits that serve well in leadership, but strangely enough, they are often the driving force for many a term of leadership by virtue of the will required to achieve the vaunted positions.
Every time I was asked to move on in my career and assume a new position, I did so with excitement and pleasure. The pleasure comes from the inherent news that I was viewed as having done a good job with my just-completed situation. The excitement comes from the anticipation of achievement in a new role. That sounds a lot like living in the past and the future more than living in the moment. I know from a tour I once took of the Coca Cola Happiness Center in Atlanta that happiness is best achieved by living in the moment and specifically NOT in the past or the future. That seems somehow incongruence with my leadership style and experience. Maybe leadership is less about happiness and more about service. I know I am happy to have been a leader over and over. It gives me great pride. But I cannot say for certain that it was something that made me happy in the moment. Maybe that is too self-indulgent and not of-service enough to qualify as good leadership.
I recall people who did not believe in ever giving up anything as they moved through their careers. I specifically remember one leader, a very charismatic leader to be certain, but not one known to have been particularly cooperative or very organizationally-focused. He was loved by his people and known to fiercely support them regardless of their righteousness to the larger cause. What he honored more than anything was their loyalty to him and his cause rather than anything they cared about the organization. In fact, if they ever wanted to do what was best for the greater cause, they were frowned upon and challenged for their misunderstanding of the priorities. If you were so inclined, you quickly knew better than to keep working for him, but there was the rub. People who worked for him were the best paid in the company and to choose to exclude yourself from such largesse was a conundrum for the money-culture soul so prevalent in business.
There was a constant effort by the upper management of the firm to “manage” this leader for the greater glory of the organization. His manner was so aggressive and his people so very motivated that his units always achieved great success…at least in the short-run perspective that was so prevalent in the annual bonus cycle of Wall Street. It is hard to question the long term when the short term is producing such apparently great results. Anyone who challenged the longer term wisdom of the approach was quickly accused of being jealous of his success and petty for not figuring out a way to support his efforts. It really was a problem for both senior leaders and peers to understand how to work with this sort of leader.
One of the manifestations of this style was that treating corporate assets as anything other than his own was simply not done. This guy ran one large global functional franchise and was also posted to Asia, where he ran the regional franchise that cut across all functional areas. That was incredibly difficult for the rest of the organization. His functional responsibilities alone were challenging since his function was so connected and central to the overall business and everyone was forced to find ways to cooperate with him or make their businesses lesser for its absence. This was true for other functions and other regions. And then, to have him run such a growing and powerful region like Asia was even more problematic because it was a critical market for every function and every other region. He was at the vortex of power in the organization and yet the organization was trying hard to manage him for everyone’s greater glory when he and his team were focused exclusively on their own glory. In fact, he adopted a zero-sum-game approach to life that suggested that anyone else’s success was a diminution of his own success. That is the most pernicious form of narcissism because it makes the beast back-bit itself into oblivion.
When that person was transferred back to London for a broader global assignment, he would only do so with the proviso that he would continue to lead Asia (from London) and the prior functional area he had previously run. In other words, he never gave up anything, only accumulated. Therein lay his ultimate Achilles’ Heel. Broadening reach simply is not manageable and the lust for control leads to a total loss of control eventually by sheer expansiveness and inconsistency of mandate.
This is not a perfect analogy for what we face today with Trump, but it has many similarities. The narcissism is the same core trait and the zero-sum-game mentality is the same pernicious characteristic, but in theory the breadth of the mandate was less about accumulation and rather about coronation. Trump was, by a fluke of national politics and sociological misguidance, given a mandate to lead the world by leading its leading nation. This is a moment of greatness that other leaders aspire to, but few fall into as surprisingly as did Trump. He was so unprepared to lead by instinct, temperament and training, that he quickly reverted to form (the role of maverick rabble-rouser) rather than rise to the challenge of true leadership. He had the command of loyalty (actually the imperative of loyalty in his case), but his acolytes lacked the discipline of excellence and were completely devoid (as was he) of any notion of service, so he did what narcissists do…focused on himself.
When this all wore thin for the majority of the electorate, despite the continued loyalty of his believers, he dug in and did what he had always done, he doubled down. He had no plan (that would require a sense of future) and he had no regrets (that requires a sense of past), he had only denial and his alternative reality. That is where we find ourselves today. A world without a leader. A nation without a plan or a leader. And a leader who refuses to know when it is time to exit stage left.