HOW WAS THE CHICKEN?

Last night, at the Al Smith Dinner in New York, there were the two candidates for president at what traditionally has been a chance for such candidates to display their more humorous sides.  It is a competition between which side can muster up better joke writers.  It is to be a light-hearted evening.  Both candidates last night acted as if they had not gotten the memo as to the purpose of the gathering, although both admitted that they had been to prior Al Smith Dinners.

          One of the two candidates, although he began his remarks in the intended spirit, devolved into the same strident tone he exhibited in the last debate, just the night before, between the two.  The other sustained a more jovial presentation but did push her candidacy, which was not the purpose.

The usual tenor at this event is to be self-deprecating and to needle the other candidate with good natured quips.  Last night, one candidate, in trying to be self-deprecating, was more deprecating of his wife.  The other did make certain self-deprecating remarks, but nothing too profound.  She made, for example, a reference to her “deplorable” comment of some weeks ago, a comment she indicated was unfortunate.

          In short, he, Donald Trump, and she, Hillary Clinton, were worth seeing, but they did not exemplify what a “good” Al Smith Dinner is supposed to be.  For that, see the Obama-McCain or the Obama-Romney version – they were just right.  But what was more revealing last night were the opposing leadership styles each candidate exhibited.  In that, they demonstrated clashing approaches of leadership.

          The Republican candidate provides an example of the charismatic style for those who follow him and the Democratic candidate more of the low profile, humble appearing style.  I write “appearing” because in both cases, one is dealing with individuals who have had celebrity status for a long time.  As such, they have had ample opportunity to craft a style they want to portray to the public.

Therefore, one cannot be sure in either case whether what one sees is what one will get.  A person would have had to work for one of these candidates to know how he/she is when the pressure builds.  What does each fall back on when the pressure is on?  This is important because the job they are after will have a boat load of pressure.

          Let’s suppose that what one sees is what one will get come January 20^th.  Based on those appearances, which is best:  a charismatic leader or a low profile, “humble” leader?  According to Michael A. Roberto,[1] there seems to be some disagreement between two gurus of organizational theory and research.  There are Jim Collins[2] and Thomas J. Peters who propose somewhat opposing opinions on this score.

          Collins sides with the low profile, humble approach.  Peters does not so much favor the charismatic approach as he prefers matching the leader and his/her dispositions to the demands of the organization at a given time.

Roberto gives the example of Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City (he was at the dinner last night scowling at Clinton and her unflattering reference to him).  When Giuliani took office, the city was suffering from high crime rates and other ailments.  He “righted the ship” and consequently enjoyed high approval ratings.  He was easily reelected.

          Then there was his second term and he tried to impose more “conservative” policies – policies that many believed were detrimental to minority populations – and his popularity plummeted.  But all that changed with the 9/11 attacks where he took charge, was highly visible and relatively transparent.  He again upped his approval ratings and left office on a high note.

          Giuliani’s example is good in that it demonstrates how, based on one person’s experience, a single personality is good in certain situations and not so good in others.  Apparently, Giuliani was good when things were extremely demanding, but lacking when things were moving along more normally.  As such, his tale seems to support Peters’ argument.

What is wrong with the Giuliani example is that it reflects a very unusual set of circumstances.  Most leaders will not be called upon to handle such extreme conditions.  So, the mayor’s effectiveness seemed to spike when the city was experiencing very difficult challenges.

          On the other hand, Collin’s argument is derived from his study about how various business enterprises that were doing poorly to mediocrely were transformed to becoming top profit-making entities – “good to great.”  In terms of leadership, he found that these companies were led by low profile, humble leaders.  These were not companies that at the time were facing drastic futures; they were not about to go bankrupt.  So, their conditions were not so imminently catastrophic.

          These more “normal” situations seem to relate to what Giuliani faced during most of his second term.  Yes, there were challenges, but established, on-going processes and policies were able to meet the demands of the day.  They could stand to improve, but that process of improvement could be more deliberate and thought out.

Although it should be pointed out that one reason Giuliani was so successful during the 9/11 attacks is that, based on an earlier attack on the World Trade Center, he had instituted appropriate planning and training to meet the challenges of another attack.  He personally supervised these efforts as they were given high priority.

          There is more that goes into successful leadership than personality traits; good sense, knowledge, temperament (which is more than just how flamboyant one is), and a host of other traits. 

I will also add that both Collins and Peters write about leaders who implement, if needed, and sustain more horizontal organizational structures where collaboration and delegation are featured.  Both write of how important it is to have a workforce that feels a sense of being federated among its members – these writers might use other language to describe this, but this is part of their message.

So, the question is, in the upcoming years, how drastic the needs will be and which of these candidates has the personality and other traits for which the place and times are calling.  I know the nation is suffering from certain problems; I’ve written about them in this blog.

But I think you would agree that they are not of the catastrophic type.  The nation is moving toward a more secure economy and there are no immediate threats from any foreign enemy.  Our biggest threat is that of terrorists and any attack from them will have limited effects.  This is serious but does not pose an existential threat.

---

[1] Michael A. Roberto, Transformational Leadership:  How Leaders Change Teams, Companies, and Organizations, (Chantilly, VA:  The Great Courses/The Teaching Company, 2011).

[2] Jim Collins, Good to Great:  Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don't, (New York, NY:  HarperCollins Publishers, Inc, .2001). 

AN INVOLVED LIFE

I went to a memorial service the other day for a former next door neighbor.  She was quite the community activist, a former state president of a well-known non-profit organization and was involved in several others.  She died in a local assisted-living facility which she had moved into a few years ago.

The service was well attended and nice things were said.  Whether she heard those things or not – or if we believe she did – is a matter of religious conviction.  What I do know is that we heard those things and it was gratifying.  The room had a glass wall so that we could overlook a forested view, very pleasant.

          I mention this because the topic of my posting today has to do with how rational or reasonable it is to be involved in civic activities.  There are different ways to think about this issue.  How one feels about whether to become involved or not is probably highly dependent on how one views government and politics.

For those of you who have been reading this blog all along, early on, I shared an extended quote from the famous political/social writer of the nineteenth century, Tocqueville.  He describes an American scene in the 1830s when people were eager and enjoyably engaged in conversations and activities that had a strong communal and civic character to them.

Here, there, and all around were people either talking or otherwise engaging in the local, community goings on with pride and a feeling that being so engaged was entertaining.  The tone portrayed a whiff of competitiveness:  who was the best citizen?

It surely was a reflection of a shared sense of duty.  And from our perspective in the twenty-first century, this scene is a source of wonder.  Why?  Why were these people so engaged?  Does it make sense?  Not from our perspective.  And here there is, in true natural rights fashion, a calculation to perform.  To see how this analysis works, let me provide an analogy.

Suppose your daily drives take you past an intersection where there is heavy traffic in every direction.  You are unfortunate on three counts.  One, you have to go through this intersection – there’s no other way to get to where you are going.  Two, there is no traffic light.  And three, your path has a stop sign staring you in the face as you approach the intersection, which causes the traffic to back up quite a bit.

This means you have to inch forward as you wait for your turn to cross the intersection.  This extra inconvenience you deem to be dangerous.  One more bit of information is that you are fairly wealthy and you can afford the cost of a traffic light. 

Should you approach the “traffic” officials and say, “Put in a traffic light; I’ll pay for the damn thing!”?  Or should you go on suffering this daily, headache inducing experience?  What is the reasonable thing to do?

You can probably think of other options, but let us leave it at that.  Here is a “community” situation, one you can improve, but will you?  Should you?  Of course, the reasonable thing is for you not to “buy” a traffic light.  That’s why government buys such things as traffic lights to begin with.  And it is also why most people don’t even get involved with political advocacy or engagement of any sort.

Let me quote Paul Burstein:

[In regard to organizing to meet some communal concern, citizens] aren’t likely to create organizations because of the collective action problem… [O]rganizations attempting to affect policy seek a collective good that will benefit every member.  Because everyone will benefit, whether or not they have done anything to win the collective good, it is rational for everyone to let others do the necessary work.  The result will be little or no collective action.  The same argument holds for individuals:  why try to influence policy when letting others do the work will produce the same benefit?[1]

So, according to this account, not only will you not buy the traffic light, but chances are you will not stir up enough organized effort to get the “traffic” officials to do what it is you think is so desperately needed.

          So what motivated my former next door neighbor to be so involved?  Assuming she didn’t have some mental abnormality – she acted “normal” in every other way – she must have developed an emotional sense that encouraged her to see engagement as either entertaining or fulfilling in some way.

Perhaps there was a religious angle or an intellectual take or some other motivating factor.  The thing is that she had something that most people don’t have.  I think she simply had a strong sense of duty, a sense that as a citizen, she just had certain responsibilities to fulfill.

          Whatever it was, I would bet it had something to do with how she grew up.  I don’t know for sure.  As an educator, I tend to believe schools do make a difference either proactively or from their inactivity in such matters.  She, I like to believe, was exposed to a more active education, one that encouraged her to care about what was happening around her and how others were being affected by the conditions of the time.

This blog has argued that there is an array of social/political problems that schools have, at a minimum, enabled by inaction by not addressing issues, especially if they have a moral aspect to them.  This neglect is caused by many reasons, one of them being that there has not been an acceptable theoretical basis by which to proceed in a more aggressive manner.  Hopefully, this blog is addressing this shortcoming.

---

[1] Paul Burnstein, American Public Opinion, Advocacy, and Policy in Congress:  What the Public Wants and What It Gets, (New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press, 2014), location 206.