President Donald Trump lashes out at a reporter during one of his COVID-19 briefings.
Photo Credit: Reporters Without Borders
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What makes a great leader? Especially in time of national crisis?
I found myself asking myself that very question the other day when President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 briefing popped up on my Facebook page. As a matter of practice, I rarely listen to briefings by the President. I find him pompous, arrogant, and spiteful to anyone who disagrees with him. Mostly, when listening to the president, I find myself getting too worked up when his narcissism kicks into overdrive and he makes himself the center of the universe.
But since we’re not only in a national crisis but a worldwide crisis of epic proportions, I thought surely the president would leave his ego at the door and help rally the nation to keep up the good fight, console the families who lost loved ones, and to thank all the courageous members of the medical community who have so heroically answered the nation’s call to duty by administering to those stricken by the deadly virus.
As of Tuesday, 45,065 people (in the U.S.) have died from the virus.
But you wouldn’t have known that by listening to the president’s briefing on Saturday afternoon. His narcissism was on full display; he talked about how well the stock market was responding, much better than he could have anticipated, he boasted. Then, suddenly, he switched gears and sounding like an unhinged madman—referred to Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times Washington correspondent Maggie Haberman as a third-rate reporter. He laced into the Washington Post and CNN as well, charging them with dishonesty.
Comforting words to those who lost family members, or encouraging words to Americans who have had to endure so many painful sacrifices during this crisis was nowhere to be found.
How is it possible that such an utter madman could be in charge of the country during such an unprecedented national crisis, when more deaths, more massive unemployment, and more tumult and chaos, is just around the corner? And when the nation is looking to their president for tonic in the form of hope and courage to keep going despite the grim future.
Administering to a grieving nation in time of national crisis befell a number of U.S. Presidents: Abraham Lincoln (U.S. Civil War) FDR (The Great Depression and Pearl Harbor), JFK (Cuban Missile Crisis), George H.W. Bush (the Gulf War), George W. Bush (9/11 terrorist attacks) and Barrack Obama (the Great Recession). And each of these individuals, when the bell rang, infused the nation with courage and hope, that the nation’s single mindedness and resiliency will eventually result in a stronger nation, beaming with a renewed sense of national pride.
James Thurber, professor of government and presidential studies at American University in Washington D.C., told me that Trump had a Churchillian moment when the pandemic struck, but was unable to work his magic like so many of his predecessors have from Lincoln to Obama. Thurber observed how George H.W. Bush’s ratings shot up 35 percent during the Gulf War, later his son, George W. Bush’s ratings leaped by as many as 40 points after 9/11. “Such a bounce in popularity is not happening with this president. It went up four percent, then went down 4 percent,” Thurber said. “The meager gains during this COVID-19 crisis is truly stunning. Usually there is a rallying effect with other leaders in times of crisis.”
Asked what leadership skills are essential in time of crisis, Thurber said that leadership means “someone who is truthful about the problem and builds consensus around a solution to the problem. Someone who develops a way out, giving vision, giving comfort, empathy, hope, and strength.” “Leadership,” Thurber further explained, “entails someone who is not afraid to say when they are wrong. And not afraid to learn from people. Someone who has a sense of history, knowledge, and expertise about other leaders. We have none of that with respect to this president.”
According to a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll , 44 percent of voters say they approve of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, while 52 percent disapprove.
What’s more, only 36 percent of respondents in the poll say they generally trust what Trump has said when it comes to the coronavirus, while 52 percent say they don’t trust him.
Who does America trust during this pandemic?
According to the same poll, 69 percent say they trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); 66 percent trust their own governor; 60 percent trust Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert; 46 percent trust New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo; and 35 percent trust Vice President Mike Pence.
What I find most fascinating about great leaders through history is that a majority, believe it or not, were not born leaders, but over time, acquired the necessary skills, developed them, worked on them some more and when the time was right—executed their leadership skills with precision.
Nancy Koehn, author and a business historian at Harvard Business School, published a book : “Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times’’ in which she examined the leadership skills of five individuals: Ernest Shackleton, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rachel Carson.
The four men and one-woman Koehn examined became, as she wrote in her book: “leaders by dint of working on themselves: intentionally choosing to make something better of who they were, even in the midst of crisis, and never losing sight of the larger, dynamic stage on which they found themselves.”
Early on in their lives, Koehn chronicles how each of these inspiring individuals recognized their weaknesses; took measures to overcome their deficiencies and sharpen the skills that would pay the most dividends.
“With experience, they learned to detach themselves enough from the immediacy,’’ Koehn wrote, “of their circumstances to observe the bigger landscape, and their place in it, and to take action-within themselves and in relation to external goals-from this perspective.”
Time and again, Donald Trump is incapable of looking at the bigger picture in this crisis; he repeatedly thinks only of himself and his standing in the polls instead of plowing ahead with bold action and a common purpose, despite the criticism he faces, even if it means risking re-election.
There was no guarantee that Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War would be reelected in 1864. In the summer of 1864, there were over 65,000 Union soldiers killed, wounded, or missing-in-action. His Emancipation Proclamation was still meeting stiff resistance from many Northerners, opposition in Congress to Lincoln grew louder, and there was even a peace candidate challenging him for the presidency.
Lincoln could have easily crumbled under such formidable circumstances-but he stayed the course-and the nation was saved.
Another key instrument of leadership missing from Donald Trump’s tool box is his failure to communicate optimism to the country amid such doom and gloom, with dead body counts growing more alarming on each passing day.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radio talks connected Americans to the White House in a way no medium of communication had yet allowed.
Source: Library of Congress
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During the Great Depression, when all seemed lost, FDR delivered his famous fireside chats, giving a sense of hope and optimism to the country amid the monstrous lines to soup kitchens. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” Roosevelt bellowed in what became a rallying cry for the nation gripped in economic calamity. The nation, through dint of hard work, did regain its mojo, thanks largely to FDR’s indomitable optimism.
And you wonder how on earth Winston Churchill was able to keep his composure and convey so much optimism to the British nation while enduring 56 straight nights of bombs raining down from the Nazis on London during World War II.?
It’s often been written that the British PM wasn’t a natural speaker, but through hard work, and honing his delivery, his radio broadcasts proved the elixir the nation needed when the future seemed so dark and without hope.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivering one of his radio broadcasts during the height of World War II.
Source: Imperial War Museum (IWM).
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When Churchill rose to the position of PM, his first speech in front of the House of Commons on May 13, 1940, demonstrated for all the world to hear, that he was equal to the task, which was: the defeat of Nazi Germany. “You ask, what is our policy? “Churchill thundered. “I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
Churchill’s stated purpose united the nation. The cantankerous British leader didn’t play the blame game like Donald Trump does, he didn’t blame Neville Chamberlain for appeasement, he didn’t throw others under the bus for the bleak state Britain found herself in. He took full responsibility with a singular purpose. It was a brilliant exercise in statesmanship that few in the world have been able to emulate.
The overwhelming consensus is that Donald Trump has failed as a leader during a time when the nation most needed a leader.
There are, however some exceptions, such as Talmage Boston, a partner in the Dallas office of Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton, LLP, where his specialty is commercial litigation. Boston has assembled the 10 Commandments of Presidential Leadership.
Mr. Boston argues Donald Trump during the COVID-19 crisis possessed the following leadership skills.
- Exhibited steadfast resolve to overcome obstacles.
- Played hardball when necessary to achieve a desired end.
- Stayed reasonably calm in a crisis.
- Moved with good timing in pursuing his initiatives.
- Was a reasonably good communicator and largely following through on what he says.
- Put the country’s interest above his own personal interest.
- Stayed mindful of the public sentiment and keeping his vision in sync with that sentiment and maybe even moving the needle on the public’s sentiment with his message.
On the downside, Boston believes Trump is deficient in the following categories.
- Lacks the capacity to serve as Conscience-in-Chief with a moral compass locked on true north.
- Lacks the capacity to rise above the fray and build consensus,
- Lacks self-awareness (i.e., knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses) and finding ways to partner with those who are strong in the areas in which he’s not.
During such a calamity that we are experiencing, I believe a leader, a true leader, is one who is able to throw away political credentials, throw caution to the wind, and lead the nation through the high winds and stormy seas no matter the consequences, because that’s what true leaders do in time of crisis: take a bullet for their country.
Historian Nancy Koehn sums up the very core of effective leadership so beautifully, when she writes: “Courageous leadership is actually a result of individual people committing to work from their stronger selves, discovering a mighty purpose, and motivating others to join their cause. In the process, each of the leaders and the people they inspire are made more resilient, a bit bolder, and, in some instances, even more luminous. When this happens, impact expands, and the possibility grows for moving goodness forward in the world.”
Measured against this yardstick, Donald Trump failed the nation miserably.
--Bill Lucey
April 21, 2020
