Category: Proactive Stories

Author: William J. Sonnenstuhl

When we look at the history of healthcare in the US, it is obvious that the failure has been one of leadership.  Not necessarily leadership at the top, but leadership at the second level.  The Clinton administration’s failure of healthcare was not a failure of vision, but one of execution.  The same could be said of the Nixon administration, and every one since.  By appointing Tom Daschle, Obama is sending a message that his concern is with execution.  He wants people in place who can deal with the daily practical reality of what needs to be done in order to move an agenda.  He wants people in place who can put ideas on the table and sustain momentum.  Daschle, while sharing many ideas with the president-elect, has the nuts-and-bolts skills of getting people on his side and moving the agenda along.

President-elect Obama’s nominations are a welcome return to the era of expertise in Washington, and Senator Tom Daschle’s nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services is a noteworthy example. Senator Daschle will bring to his role formidable expertise. As a former Speaker of the House, he knows how to move legislation through Congress. He has also written one of the most thoughtful books on health care reform in the United States to come off the presses this year and been an advisor to Obama on health reform during the presidential campaign.

Author: Samuel B. Bacharach

In the last few days, a lot has been made about “leading from the center.” A lot has been said about the virtues of trying to hold your team together, but hold it tighter at the core.  “Leading from the center” is not just a metaphor or analogy, but a practical decision about where and when you spend limited resources in a limited period of time.  The center is now in vogue.  Early reviews of Barack Obama’s leadership style imply that he has made a decision to lead from the center. Most discussions of this decision have been in terms of ideology, implying that he chose to lean neither to the left nor to the right, but he adopted a moderate strategy in order to envelop the majority, which he assumes is at the center.  But leading from the center, as many successful corporate leaders know, is not simply an ideological decision, but a tactical decision that dictates with whom you’re going to spend your time, whom you’re going to mobilize, and where you’re going put your precious time and resources.  In this day and age, there are strong pressures to make decisions and implement policies.  A leader like Obama has to decide which people he needs to pull in and which people he can put less effort into mobilizing.  Leaders face four options:

• Do they spend more time with their ideological base to assure that they have their core with them?
• Do they spend more time with those with whom they share very little ideology and hope that they can persuade them and bring them along?
• Do they spend more time with those who don’t agree with them but are convincible?
• Do they spend more time with those who don’t agree with and are pulling away?

These are four unique options. The first, covering your base, implies that if your core supporters are behind you, you might be able to ram something through. The problem with this option is that it creates groupthink and a sense of cabal, the sense that everything is being pushed by an inner circle. The second, trying to convert the ideological opposition is the Hail Mary pass.  If you succeed, you win it all.  If you fail, the danger is that you only strengthen your most vocal opponents.  The last two, the strategy of trying to pull in those leaning toward you and assuring those who might drift away, is at the heart of leading from the center.  Clearly, Obama has decided for the time being to avoid the dangers of the appearance of leading by inner circle or the promises of a Hail Mary pass.  He is going to have to rely on his micro-political competence to persuade and convince. That is what leading from the center is all about.

Author: Jim Biolos

The seemingly failed bailout requests by our nation’s auto makers shows why proactive leadership must be an imperative for all current and future executives.

When it comes to the US automobile industry, there have always been five important stakeholders:  the US congress, the American public, the United Auto Workers union and its legion of workers, oil companies, and the auto company’s shareholders.  The leaders of each car company needed to make its case to each of these stakeholders — to keep its profits strong, its interests protected against foreign competition, and to keep its operations running smoothly.  Every auto company CEO since the ’70s has learned to play this game.  Some had perfected it.  Using lobbyists, they built congressional support for their agenda.  They used a combination of hardball tactics and moderate conciliation to keep the union relationship on an even keel.  They stayed in lock step with big oil’s interests.  And through hefty advertising, constantly kept in front of the consumers’ eyes.  Auto company leaders worked these stakeholders and, despite losing market share over the decades, they managed to keep their stakeholders on their side.

In training leaders, we’re often too busy having them read the newest management book or about the newest fad discussed in MBA courses.  In truth, most leaders read about leaders, not books about leadership.  In this piece by John Meacham, potential leaders will get insight into what others are reading and have read.  This isn’t to suggest they should be reading the same material, but it is to suggest that they should explore themselves and their leadership styles in the history of other tested leaders.

Author: S. B. Bacharach

Smart leaders understand boundaries; certain things are done and certain things are not done.  Certain things are said and certain things are not said. Boundaries are not driven by moral imperative, although they may be, boundaries are not driven by right and wrong, although they may be.  For political leaders boundaries are often appropriately driven by a sense that there is a tomorrow.

Observing the landscape of political dialogue, there is always a debate over whether people have “gone too far” or “not far enough” in their language and presentation of positions.  When evaluating whether a candidate has exceeded boundaries, the reference is to the individual’s character, such as: “So and so knows no bounds” or “Now, they’ve gone over the top.” Implied here that candidate and supporters use whatever language or rhetoric it takes to win.  Simply put, we condemn their character on the basis of the rhetoric of their politics.  By and large, I think that this is very appropriate.

However, the problem with this is not simply what negative politics does to the image of individual politicians, but what it does to the constituents.  The day after the political rhetoric dies, the emotion remains.  A scorched earth of unbounded rhetoric is very difficult to build on.  Smart political leaders understand that in winning the majority, they can raise the negative, but only within boundaries.  The question is what to do the day after, when there is no longer the need to be elected, but to govern and implement.  What will they do when they need not just fifty percent on their side, but everyone on their side.  Smart leaders understand how to take the lid off the pot so it can release some steam and not let it boil over.