Managing the Split Personality of Leadership

I planned on writing about something completely different this week, but Saturday evening's event at the Trump rally changed that plan. Some short reflections: 

1. Great leadership requires knowing history.

Saturday’s news felt shocking, and much of the commentary alluded to the moment's uncertainty. However, I was thinking about Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio’s point in his book Principles about how history repeats itself—that “almost all ‘cases at hand’ are just ‘another one of those.’” His point was that very little is unprecedented, and studying the examples of others can provide patterns to follow even when a situation is new to us.

General Jim Mattis made a similar point in Call Sign Chaos, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate—you can’t coach and you can’t lead. History lights the often dark path ahead; even if it’s a dim light, it’s better than none.”

In moments of uncertainty, those who can frame the experience and start to point the way forward will be more effective than those who are figuring things out for the first time. 

[In this case, the historical similarities to 1968 are eerie—an election year in which there were questions about whether the incumbent could stand for reelection, campus protests over war, a Robert F. Kennedy on the ballot, political violence, and a Democratic National Convention in the city of Chicago.]

2. A crisis plan requires practice.

Because Saturday’s shooting happened near an open microphone, the audio of the U.S. Secret Service response is incredible. One thing that stands out is that barely anyone is yelling or trying to figure out what to do. 

On NBC, former Secret Service agent Evy Poumpouras described what happened: “The communication is very clear and succinct. ‘Can we move?’ ‘Are we clear?’ You hear, ‘Shooter’s down,’ and you hear, ‘Are we clear to move?’ [...] When it comes to comms, you always want to say less. You can hear them using very simple words—three, four words. They just want to keep those airwaves clear so that the most important vital communication can pass.” 

Practice is the key to achieving that coordinated response to a crisis. This is why schools conduct fire drills. In contrast, many organizations with crisis plans have only that—plans. But if a crisis came, they would have difficulty implementing those plans quickly because they never practiced what the plans imagined.

3. You have to manage the split personality of leadership.

In college, I served as president of our black students' association. One consequence of that experience was that I occasionally received hate mail. 

It was terrifying the first time it happened. But when I talked to the university police, they helped me realize that the hate mail was not for me as an individual—it was aimed at the person in the position. I stopped receiving those messages once I was no longer in the role. 

It was ultimately a lesson that leadership requires putting yourself “out there”—with the personal safety, ego, and emotional implications of being visible and subject to the evaluation of others. And unless you have no regard for the feelings or judgments of others, leading requires figuring out how to reconcile the very personal and emotional challenges of being exposed to others with the fact that the downsides of that exposure aren’t necessarily related to you as an individual.

For example, it’s probably not fun for President Biden to endure constant scrutiny and questioning of his mental faculties. Yet, he still needs to wake up each day and be ready to present himself to the public, knowing there would be none of that very personal criticism if he were a private citizen.

I once attended a talk by a former CEO of Lenovo, who described the emotional adjustments he had to make after being fired. He reflected that people flatter you and cater to your wishes as CEO, which starts to creep into your ego. Once you’re out of the CEO chair, you realize that others only did those things because of the seat you occupied, not because of you.

I have a client who is the CEO of a large nonprofit. She told me that a critical maturation point for her as a leader came when she was at a staff holiday party and realized that no one would have fun while she was there. At first, it felt like a personal rebuke, but then she realized it did not matter how fun her personality was because people were not interacting with her. They were interacting with the boss. 

Obviously, political leadership is the ultimate form of exposure and has a much higher personal safety risk from being physically exposed. But Saturday’s events are just the far edge of that leadership exposure. Many of my clients’ challenges relate to all the emotional exposures they face as leaders. It’s challenging because you’re the one experiencing being shot at—metaphorically, in most cases—even if it’s not you who is being targeted.