By Ira Chaleff
Appeared in Roll Call on February 12, 1995
The fortunes of our political leaders, as measured by public perception and standing within their own parties, seem to seesaw almost weekly.
The specific reasons vary, but there is a common denominator: The vicissitudes of the fortunes of President Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan), or House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga) occur largely because of what they do to themselves rather than what others do to them.
It would be far preferable for the republic if our leaders succeeded or failed on the merits of their policies and their sills at consensus-building. What can we do as friends, followers, or advisers to political leaders that will prevent those whom we support from self-destructing?
Most actions by political leaders are taken in the presence of their inner circles, who are not only supposed to serve them but also are supposed to protect them. Protect them from whom? From themselves, of course. Within every leader lies the germ of his or her own destruction, waiting for the right conditions to activate. But within every leader’s inner circle lies the antidote, if it is used in time and in sufficient doses, which it often is not. Let’s examine how this works.
There are three points at which a leader of any sort is vulnerable: (1) his or her strengths; (2) his or her weaknesses; and (3) the inherent pressures of the role.
- Strengths. Success is heady stuff. A newly elected Member of Congress can’t help but think, “I must be doing something right to have gotten here. I’d better do more of that.” If “that,” for example, was doing favors for people as a state legislator, then the Member may do favors on a larger, national scale. Only the rules have changed and excessive favors get him or her in big ethics trouble.
The natural law at work is that any strength taken to an extreme becomes a weakness. - Weaknesses. While success is transmuting a leader’s strengths into liabilities, a parallel trend is occurring – any weaknesses the leader has are magnifying. Who cares if Rep. Gingrich from Georgia’s 6th district goes off at the mouth a bit?
But when he becomes the spokesman for the new Republican brain trust, this intellectual garrulousness creates front-page news and high negative ratings. The higher the leader rises, the more the flaws magnify. - Pressures. Due to their internal makeup and the demands of their position, leaders often drive themselves physically and psychologically, straining their health, their family dynamics, and their friendships.
Some compensate for this with destructive behavior. They then have to rationalize this behavior like crazy to themselves and their colleagues. Ex-Sen. Bob Packwood’s (R-Ore) diaries are a rare public view of how extreme this rationalization can become.
What happens in the pivotal dynamic between leaders and their closest followers, not just on Capitol Hill but in every sector, that results in the loss of so much leadership talent in this town, from Aramony to Biaggi to Coelho to Durenberger to Espy and on down the alphabet?
The leader whose star is rising and whose ego is swelling begins forming internal barriers to feedback form others: “Who are they to tell me what to do? They’re not the one who was elected!” Those surrounding the leader form their own complicity with this trend: “Who am I to tell her what to do? She’s the boss!”
Sure, any adviser worth his or her salt will raise concerns about inappropriate or counterproductive behavior. But as soon as the leader growls back or sends the message that what they’re talking about is off limits, the inner circle too often switches to a damage-control mode: “How do we keep the press from catching the Senator? Mend the fences the Member is knocking down? Keep the staff from blowing the whistle on abusive behavior? Exert spin control on the ill-advised comment to the press?”
This behavior is understandable, but if efforts to support the leader are reduced to papering over the problem, it is culpable for the eventual day of reckoning.
The old truism “power tends to corrupt” doesn’t tell us how this happens. The mechanism at work is that “power tends to interrupt feedback loops.”
Only feedback can keep us real about the effects we are having on others. If feedback is interrupted by the internal psychology of successful leaders in collusion with the muted voices of their closest followers, inappropriate or self-defeating behavior can become the norm, and mildly dysfunctional behavior can become egregious.
A lot of us in Washington get paid to help our leaders be successful in their roles. This in no way absolves leaders from accountability for their own actions, but it does mean that we, too, are accountable. To really earn our money, we must be willing to risk our relationship with the political leader we serve when there are uncomfortable things the leader needs to hear, and hear again, and hear more firmly.
We may lose that relationship, but we will have done so honorably. If we’re not willing to risk the relationship, we betray it. An eventually, the leader stops going up and down on the seesaw and just falls off.
Washington-based consultant Ira Chaleff is the author of The Courageous Follower: Standing Up To and For Our Leaders.