Are 'political leaders' an oxymoron?!

Lambasting our politicians is a democratic sport - if they're stupid enough to stick their necks out we'll knock 'em down, since by definition they must all be lying, conniving, power-grabbing harlots, surely?!

Maybe we're the problem, not them?  Possibly we get the politicians we deserve if we don't take politics seriously? 

Are you willing and able to relinquish insecurities, tribal instincts and media brainwashing, and listen objectively to a provocative take on politics, using insights into the well-researched behaviour of Top 1% leaders and organisations?  

This blog gives my thoughts on the brutal realities of the political backdrop to the 2015 UK General Election.  Hopefully the observations are relevant elsewhere too.

The second part, Is voting a waste of time?, tackles a fundamental question and uses learning from the Top 1% to try to answer it: 

In the messy, complex, frustrating reality of 21st Century politics how should you vote?!

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Most political debate is infantile, tiresome hot air – it’s a wholly predictable Punch and Judy show.  It’s either this, OR it’s that, say the two main UK parties, as they bash each other over the head, simplistically distort and devalue each other’s contributions, mischievously fuel voters’ cynicism and mistrust of their opponents, and reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. It drives me nuts!

Politics is further discredited and undermined by political leaders’ unwillingness to admit mistakes or acknowledge uncomfortable truths.  The reason is that it’s a glorified popularity contest, and they are under extreme pressure to play to the crowd - the relatively narrow interest group(s) who support or bankroll them, and vast numbers of others who don’t understand the complex realities and want it expressed in baby talk, conveniently filtered for them through the prejudices of the journalists in their chosen tribal media.  This further devalues the debate and only serves to alienate intelligent voters – it’s a vicious circle.

The electorate as a whole are like sheep.  They basically do as they are told by the people they trust most to tell them what to do.  In their search for easy answers and a brave new (fairy tale) world where life is simple, straightforward and childlike, an increasingly large minority will vote this time for beguiling con men (and women) in distracting extremist or one issue parties who may well be conning themselves the most!  This is really scary.

The centrist portions of the Conservative and Labour Parties and the majority of the Liberal Democrat Party are far closer together than they are to the right wing of the Conservative Party or the left wing of the Labour Party.  British politics is crying out for a re-alignment in which the left wing of the Conservative Party breaks away and combines with the majority of the Liberal Democrat Party and elements of the right wing of the Labour Party to form a powerful centre grouping that could govern for years as a One Nation party if it played its cards intelligently (following Top 1% principles), which would include being visionary and inspiring, by the way, not purely pragmatic.  

Boy, do we need it right now!!

OK, but that’s not apparently going to happen anytime soon. Therefore we’re stuck with a Conservative Party constantly distracted and dragged towards the right, particularly over Europe and immigration, and a Labour Party continuing to dally with laudable but entirely impractical socialist ideals.  We have a Conservative Prime Minister who’s fairly competent and likeable in a well-meaning, doesn’t set the world on fire, smug, privileged, out-of-touch, public school sort of way, but who has consistently shown he lacks the bottle to talk to real voters (not halls filled with Conservative stooges), debate publicly with his opponents, or stand up to the conniving ideologues in his own party and LEAD from the centre. And we have a Leader of the Labour Party until recently ridiculed by his opponents and thought by many (including me) to woefully lack the qualities and experience to lead the country, who is now suddenly looking much more statesmanlike, but who, together with his party of too many inexperienced, naive idealists, represents an unwelcome hostage to fortune for the country, for multiple reasons.

History shows that nation states too often lurch from one political extreme to another in the cycle of elections, so they don’t get where they need to go as fast as they need to get there.  Exhausted and disillusioned electorates are taken in by politicians who promise change for change’s sake, i.e. change from the other lot who’ve gone before who are, by definition, a bunch of treacherous incompetents.  We keep starting from scratch and throwing the baby out with the bathwater, instead of building intelligently on what’s already there and ensuring there’s a steady hand on the tiller.  Whatever anyone tells you, politics is (too much) about emotion, not reason.  Our primitive brains are in charge - see How the brain works and why you should know.

The outcome of this UK General Election on 7th May is less predictable and more fraught with danger than for many years.  Neither of the two most likely outomes looks attractive to many, me included, though there are pros and cons.

•  If Labour are the largest party in Parliament after May 7th we get an inexperienced, idealistic bunch of policy wonks who will in my view, however well intentioned, naively commit a lot of the sins of their forefathers all over again (see the blog Human weakness - a competitive advantage?).  We may, or may not, get the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) to boot – if Labour truly is foolish enough to parley with them then the informed view is that it will render itself unelectable for decades after a single term in Government.  With or without the SNP the country will lurch in a different direction with Labour at the helm when we badly need relative stability.  Business confidence will suffer.  The respected independent economic analysis group the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said this week that the funding of Labour’s policies is not transparent.  However, the upside of a Labour-led Government is that we avoid a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, which would be the largest known, predictable upheaval to our economy and a huge distraction and own goal when we need to be focused on growing sustainably in very challenging times and addressing pressing geo-political and environmental difficulties. 

• If it’s the Conservatives we get a recklessly one-dimensional approach to cutting the deficit (austerity) in which the wealthiest don’t make a sufficient contribution, and ironically creativity and entrepreneurism is not sufficiently encouraged to generate greater wealth for the country and thus increase the tax take, i.e. the sort of balanced approach to turnaround that an intelligent business leader would adopt.  We also get a widening disparity between a shrinking set of haves, who have more and more, and the majority, the have-nots, who have less and less. This is not a recipe for sustainable growth and deficit cutting.  The IFS said this week that like Labour the funding of Conservative policies is not transparent.  Most disturbingly of all we get the colossal, unnecessary hostage to fortune of a distracting, destabilising, divisive 2 year build-up to a 2017 referendum on Europe, ironically foisted on us by the self-styled party of economic responsibility!!!  David Cameron is gambling recklessly that the referendum can be won by a pro-European campaign – look how close he came to screwing up the Scottish independence referendum, with incalculable consequences!  If we get a Conservative-led government, even with the Lib Dems in it (I can’t see them stopping David Cameron’s prospective death wish, hard as they may try) I predict that some companies will start relocating from the UK to other countries to avoid the uncertainty, and others not already here will choose to invest in other countries instead.  (I wrote this section on Friday morning, before I heard HSBC’s announcement!)  Let’s be clear, the EU needs a complete overhaul, especially the extravagant budget and the complacent, meddling fat cats in the EU Commission in Brussels.  But David Cameron has done untold damage to the UK’s credibility and influence, especially with our many allies in Europe who also want reform, through his risible, na?ve, gun boat grandstanding in Europe to pander to the right wing of his party and folk who might be tempted to vote UKIP.  And he has made no compelling argument to mobilise the centre ground, or to constructively champion reform in Europe and work with allies across Europe to make progress on that agenda.

So where do we go from here?  Watch this space next weekend for a suggested solution based on Top 1% organisational and leadership principles.

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I’m grateful you’ve taken the time to read this article. If you find it helpful please click on 'Like' and also share it using the Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+ button. And make a difference - be a smart giver and do something positive for others this week. Pay it forward.

Recent blogs you may find helpful include:

10 reasons to stick your neck out!

Do you ever think you've got it tough?

Be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove

Why genuine selflessness is good business

How the brain works and why you should know

Do organisations thrive without the 'old timers'?

If this blog is particularly relevant to you, your organisation, or to someone else you know, I may be able to help or advise. I strive to be a smart giver – Adam Grant’s excellent book “Give and Take” (2013) explains why smart givers are the highest 25% of achievers in all walks of life. They go out of their way to help others, intelligently, without allowing themselves to be widely exploited. In this way they inspire higher performance and create sustained new value through collaborative exchange.

The business I lead, Resolve Gets Results (RGR), provides hands-on leadership, management, problem solving, customer/market development, sales and fundraising capabilities to companies with long-term growth potential.  I'm also actively involved in Linked2Success (L2S), a business which helps clients to use social media intelligently to build professional relationships and grow.  RGR and L2S work together as a single team to leverage the benefits of our respective skill sets, giving tremendous business value to far-sighted clients..

I work with a superb small team of Board-level professionals, each a leader in their field with over 30 years’ business experience. We are based in the UK but have international business backgrounds, in my case including 5 years in the United States, where I ran a high growth machinery sales and service business.

You can find my contact details under the ‘Contact info’ tab near the top of my LinkedIn profile.

Mark Ashton