Voting for a Leader is Electing to Be a Follower: How Do We Choose The Best Leaders to Follow?

By Phil Liebman, MLAS - I may be climbing out on a somewhat precarious limb here - seeing how emotionally charged this presidential election has been. And because I also share the belief held by many that LinkedIn should be a platform for professional development and matters impacting business. This is.

As a student of Dr. Lee Thayer's work (Ie.: "Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing" and about 20 other titles), I thought it would be interesting to apply his uniquely expert overview on leadership to the current race for the White House.

Elected public leaders generally fall into a different class than those in the private sector who lead organizations such as businesses. This is at least partly the case because general elections turn into essentially popularity contests, rather than clear assessments of the candidates leadership abilities. People tend to vote with their hearts more than their heads. The main difference is that we may look to political leaders via the vague concept of having an ability to govern - while business leaders are assessed to for their ability to successfully grow and maintain a profitable business. Many rightfully feel our country would be function better if it were run like a successful business - others fear this as naive or even dangerously misguided. I don't believe there is sufficient evidence to know who's right.

But in the final analysis, both roles carry the same required competencies. We should be able to apply the same standards. And in this year's presidential elections, we have a candidate differentiated from his opponents as "an outsider" on the basis of being a successful business leader from the private sector versus a political leader representing a broken, ineffective and dysfunctional system. While Thayer has never written on the subject or chosen to assay politicians based on the principles of leadership he has observed and proffered, I have thought about the implications and wondered what I might be able to learn – that might be valuable to share with others.

You may find it tempting to conclude that my political leanings are bleeding through my judgment. I can assure you they are not. This piece is not the least bit reflective of what I “want” to see – unfortunately it is a sober assessment of what I do. I have not addressed the third-party candidates – simply because I do not have enough data observed to make a sensible argument about them. Again – this is through the lens of leadership – not politics.

Each of these five lenses borrows from the principles and concepts Lee has developed over the past fifty years - and organized in his opus work, "Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing."

Optic Lens One: It is the organization that makes the leader successful; not the other way around.

Mr. Trump does not subscribe to this – nor do I think he even vaguely understands how this might be possible. He is the center of his everything, he professes to have the answers, listens lightly, when at all, to those he surrounds himself with, and while he surrounds himself with people who may be more competent and more capable than himself – he seems to take credit for the success he garners from their thinking and slams people when he fails or even flails.

As a businessman he carries the baggage of a great many failed organizations – the list is both obvious and too long to recount here. It’s OK for business leaders to suffer failures – at least when they own their personal complicity and take responsibility for those failures. Mr. Trump does not. He has amassed a fortune from his enterprises – but that does not speak to the success of the organizations – only that he has enlarged his personal accumulation of assets as a result. He has been successful in building a premier brand around his name – but that brand has failed to make his organizations particularly successful.

Like it or not, Secretary Clinton, amid her failings and failures – has led successful organizations. They may not be organizations we like, but her political organizations have gotten her elected to public office, her charitable organizations (ethically dubious or otherwise) have nobly served their missions – even if they may have also lined certain stakeholders pockets, and she has successfully championed mostly liberal causes her entire career. She is far from the best example of a leader successful by the organizations she leads – but I would argue that she is far more an exemplar than her political rival.

Optic Lens Two: Leaders are not judged by their ability, but measured by what they have accomplished.

Mr. Trump has clearly accomplished a great deal. And frankly, so has Secretary Clinton.

But do we measure accomplishment by quantity or by quality? Lee Thayer would use the description of “by any measure” as the standard. So we cannot separate quality of results from all other consequences. Trump’s greatest accomplishment is most likely his level of celebrity. He is clearly a self-made celebrity founded in his desire to entertain the world with himself at the center stage. There is nothing wrong with this; this is clearly how entertainment works.

We call them stars, which are bright, shiny suns at the center of their own universes – far, far away from our daily realities. But celebrity is not a cause of leadership.

He has also amassed great wealth – but what legacy has he left in his wake? There is a string of failed, bankrupt casinos and other businesses. How have these contributed to society? Who has benefited beyond Mr. Trump and a handful of people who have helped him build and protect that wealth? It is not surprising that he sees the value of building fortresses to keep others out and away from his private wealth.

Clinton has a public record. We may not like what she has accomplished – or who has benefited, but clearly she has benefited a great many more people than Trump. She may have also benefited many people unfairly through her crony-politics. And just as Trump cites the loopholes in the tax-code for benefiting his personal interests, Clinton has played the political trump card for hers. But that does not diminish her accomplishments by any measure.

She is a somewhat defective public servant that rallies the status quo – but her thirty years of public service contain volumes of accomplishments – whether we choose to see them valuable to our own needs and interests or not. But the shear number of people who would find that they have benefited would outnumber what Trump has done by a nearly incalculable magnitude. And those who feel that she has abused her power and accomplished what she has solely for her own benefit – are, of course, entitled to their opinions – but the facts also speak to the contrary.

Optic Lens Three: Leadership is Competence derived from many competencies.

Competence is measured in our accomplishments. It is both our raw ability to perform and the conscientiousness that drives us to serve a cause or not – in order to accomplish what we do – or not. Trump has the raw ability to attract financial capital and people who can apply that capital to build things. Clinton has the raw ability to attract political capital and the people who can apply that capital to build things. In this regard, they are probably no different. But having the ability – whether talent, determination, learned skills or objective experience – does not translate into accomplishing anything worthwhile with what he has. It requires that we apply conscientiousness through what we believe in and value; it is the purpose that drives us to perform. 

Both candidates suffer to some extent here. But it at least seems to me that Trump suffers far more. He seems to care more about himself than he cares about others – at least his business dealings by his own boastful admissions suggest so. His charitable giving seems to suggest it is not a driving force. And his attitude towards segments of society – be it women, minorities or those physically challenged have been widely viewed in the public eye. We can debate if that is how he actually feels – or whether this blown out of proportion by a media intent on embarrassing and undermining his credibility, but the fact remains – his cause in life seems to be something related to serving himself and his personal interests. This is neither good business or good leadership.

Clinton has some similar elitist tendencies. She seems to view herself as smugly entitled to the power her public offices have provided her with. It sometimes seems that she views her cause as supported by divine destiny. And her participation in crony-politics is as self-serving as Trump’s participation in crony-capitalism. She suffers from an intellectual superiority complex – as much as Trump suffers from the delusions of grandeur that are easy to understand in your run-of-the-mill billionaires. But whether it is with a pure heart – or purely for political gain, Clinton has championed causes her whole life. Even taken on unpopular causes.

They have both made poor choices in their personal and professional lives, because everyone does. But it is clear to me that Clinton is driven by her causes – as much as she drives them. No matter how hard I look, I fail to see this key quality of leadership in Trump.

Optic Lens Four: Leadership is a Performing Art.

Leadership is a role we play, not who we are. Who we are, however, informs how we perform in that role. And how we think (and what we think about) is the parent of who we are. All of this comes down to how we feel about things – and how we feel about things – our beliefs and values develop and evolve only through our being in the learning mode. Learning is everything. Learning equals growth, and growth equals life. The role of a leader ultimately amounts to bringing more life to those we lead through the organizations we build.

This is perhaps Trumps greatest weakness. He functions entirely in the "knowing mode"; it is impossible to learn anything we need to know when we live there. It is well documented that Trump doesn’t read much beyond tabloids. He forms opinions (and probably his policies) based on listening to the people he wants to hear, and dismisses (and often attacks) those who challenge him.

Even when we are correct, our strength as a leader – or simply as someone leading our life as best we can, is realized in our habit of being curious and asking questions. Trump is an opinion peddler - and a habitual fabricated truth dispenser. (This is the politician tendencies he shares with his rival.) He builds walls around his comfort zone – and alienates those who might have anything valuable to offer that he doesn’t already know.

It is the classic example of what Thayer points out as people preferring problems that they cannot solve over solutions they do not like.

These are the things that undermine Trump’s performance as a leader. His misbehavior regarding women caught on tape was a matter of the spotlight being cast on his poor performance in the past. The problem is that he hasn’t learned anything as evidenced by his poor performance in his response. Being defensive and going on the attack is not the performance he needed to give if what he needed to accomplish was to win the hearts and minds of his detractors.

Instead he climbs into the womb of his base of supporters to rile them up – because that’s more comfortable. Communicating contrition, taking ownership of his problems and putting a lid on his complaints might actually accomplish what his greater aims seem to be: winning the votes of those who are reluctant to vote for his opponent – but not seeing the leader in him to make that an easy choice. 

But this seems too difficult for Trump. He is not conversant on the issues. He is good at sound bites – but entirely lacking in substance because he thinks he knows what he needs to know. A learner might think otherwise.

Clinton suffers from her own comfort zone. Her performance, however is far more steady than her opponent. She seems to better understand the role of “political leader” and has, at least, a more demonstrated capacity to be in the learning mode. She has made more than her fair share of mistakes, but very few political blunders. She seems to learn from her attackers how to avoid returning the reaction they seek. She forms substantial policy positions that she stands by – and can defend to those who staunchly disagree with her. She seems to thrive in adversity and maintain the role she plays.

She undoubtedly mistakes her own knowledge and experience as a signal of her strength, but she too recoils quickly to her base and her comfort zone, and suffers from needing to convince people that she does have the answers.

However, how she communicates what she knows is far more effective than her opponent. By training, by learning and by natural talent she is more logic-centered, a polished orator, a studied debater and a thoughtful thinker. Unfortunately her pedigree as a lawyer and a politician makes those qualities dubious to those who want to oppose her. There is a general sense that lawyers and politicians are trained to use these tools to gain an unfair advantage. And for those who cannot think and do not learn, at their own peril – it is true.

Yet she undeniably performs the role of leadership more convincingly than Trump – who has made a rather impressive attempt to turn that against her by appealing to those who rightfully are frustrated, angry or just disgusted with the status-quo of dysfunction, and mediocrity that has made a total mess of government and our approach to democracy.

Optic Lens Five: Leaders are Meaning Makers and Meaning Managers…

Trump has seized on the darkness in people’s lives. He has rightfully found a base in people across a wide spectrum of demographics that share a common angst. He mongers the frustration of those who feel disillusioned and disenfranchised by government and those who are fearful of the consequences stemming from the palpable dysfunction of government.

By rallying the powerful emotions provoked by pointing to the enemy – he appeals to those who long for the day that their comfort zone can be expanded and walled in. He suggests there is strength in xenophobic thinking by suggesting the fear they imagine is a real threat. He leans on slogans, clichés and divisive labels to rally support and incite further fear. He manages the meaning of his campaign extremely effectively.

Clinton may have preferred to build meaning by communicating a future she wants to create for us. She suggests that she believes that this is the future the majority of the electorate wants to see – so much that she is willing to change her vision to land in the comfort zone of the populous. This is likely why her purpose is fuzzy to many – and many find her difficult to believe and trust. She is a weak meaning maker and manager.

Clinton has also capitalized on a certain degree of fear mongering – in painting Trump to be a monster out to kill our democracy. The xenophobia she promotes is that Trump is not “one of us” and his supporters are outside the mainstream and pose a danger to not only our hopes and dreams – but to the foundations of government that keeps us safe and sound. In these arguments she has been a more effective meaning-maker – but in the process has managed to misshape herself into someone who more resembles the enemy she takes target at – than the great liberal hope she claims to be. Her email debacle, the honorariums for and content of her wall street speeches make it much harder to cast Trump as the leader of the evil empire – when it seems to her detractors that she happens to be the pot calling the kettle black.

A closing question: Who Might Be The More Competent Leader?

Politics, not withstanding, when I apply the astute thinking of Lee Thayer’s work, I would say neither shows the signs of great leadership. Neither Trump nor Clinton are close to being virtuoso leaders. But could either be sufficiently competent?

My conclusion is that the sway is towards Clinton. I believe Trump disqualifies himself on critical factors. He believes it is the leader that makes the organization successful, and he fails in all aspects of being in the learning mode.

If we were voting based solely on ability to lead effectively, Secretary Clinton wins my vote. But political sensibility is a bias that does count too, so the choice is not quite so clear.

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Phil Liebman is the CEO and founder of ALPS Leadership and a Vistage Chair since 2005. He earned his Master of Leadership Arts and Sciences at The Thayer Institute - studying High-Performance Organizations and Competent Leadership under Dr. Lee Thayer. You can learn more about what it takes to become a more effective leader and building and growing sustainable high-performance organizations by visiting ALPS Leadership at www.ALPSLeadership.com