Leaders who work within a governance structure are different than ones who never had governance over them.  We’re experiencing the difference right now in our president’s behavior, and nobody should be surprised at what we see.

Why shouldn’t this be surprising? We implicitly assume that all leaders are accustomed to a governance-based structure because they worked within one before. We get surprised by the behaviors of those who never had governance, because it’s a rare circumstance.

Most all of us have a boss.  Even as a CEO, you have a “boss” because you have a board of directors to whom you’re accountable, or to investors, or both.  When we reflect on recent presidents, they all had bosses too.

President Obama had a boss as a senator; the party leader.  Plus his constituents.  As a law professor, he had a boss in the dean of the faculty or the departmental head.

President Bush had bosses. As governor, it was his constituents and his party. As a businessman, he was on boards of directors where others’ inputs were accommodated by necessity.

However, our president grew up never having a boss.  This is both unusual and very different.

Effectively, he wasn’t ever subject to the governance of independent directors, investors or a supervisor.  As a result, his behaviors never had to accommodate persons in higher authority than himself.

By way of analogy, once in a while a company in the tech industry manages to succeed with the founder’s own bootstrapping. Only later does the company accept outside investment and accept outside investors onto a board of directors.  The longer the time between initial bootstrapping and initial governance, the harder it is on the founder to modify his or her behavior to accept a governance structure for the first time.

I’ve borne witness to multiple of these situations and I can tell you that the founder/CEO seldom adjusts to this change easily if at all.

Now our country is witnessing this phenomenon on a grand scale as our president experiences the initial shock of governance; there is now a unilateralism in virtually everything he does.  This includes but goes beyond having two other branches of government. There are bosses in the form of constituents, the media, other governments, staffers etc.  He can’t order everybody around as he was accustomed to. Apparently he doesn’t like it one bit.

We should not be surprised by any of this given an utter lack of governance in his past, let alone taking his personality into account. If Americans thought they were hiring a typical successful business CEO – who had a board and investors – they overlooked the important difference between the vast majority of CEO’s and this one: governance.

Whether he becomes an effective president or not will depend, in my opinion, on whether he can accept governance over himself for the first time.

 

The Pew Research Foundation published an in-depth analysis of what constitutes “national identity” around the world. The data is based on Spring 2016 survey data.

What struck me is how important being a Christian is to Americans, relative to other countries:

As one might imagine, the importance of Christian affiliation is greater for Republicans than Democrats.

In fact, there are several meaningful differences in the definition of “national identity” between the parties:

We know that city dwellers skew Democrat and rural dwellers skew Republican.  This report reinforces the broader basis of our “city mouse versus country mouse” cultural and socioeconomic divide:

• multiple ethnicities in cities versus homogeneously white in rural regions
• multiple religions and secularists in cities versus Christians in rural regions
• higher per-capita incomes in cities versus lower in rural settings
• higher percentage of college educated graduates in cities than in rural settings

I fear this divide is intractable for now. Our cities are becoming more, not less, diverse by every measure thanks to the global nature of the technology and financial service industries.

But the divide is still probably temporal, given the long term demographic trends.

Perhaps we’re experiencing the last stand by those who think our country’s control should rest in the hands of one religious affiliation:

For another blog is the irony of this all.  Our founding fathers carefully designed an areligious government system, where no religious bloc could wield power over others. Their motives were rooted in their prior experiences of religious persecution and monarchial control.

If we really want to get along, perhaps the founding fathers should be our true north (again).

My 9-year-old son is aware of the recent election and the President’s actions since inauguration.  He sees news snippets on TV and brings stories back from school.

It’s been difficult explaining to him why the President can get away with lying.

He understands that the role of President is to be our country’s leader, and therefore should be the “best” person among us.  And he’s heard many, many times from us his parents about the importance of truthfulness.

So he’s confused.

Yet his innocent question remains.

Our President is a serial liar.  This is not in dispute.  He’s done so multiple times in just his first week in office, perpetuating a pattern throughout his candidacy.  And his lies are beyond what we’re accustomed to hearing from politicians on both sides, spinning their versions of an issue.

So many questions come to mind:

• Why is this ok?
• Do we not deserve better?
• What will be the cost of this behavior on our citizens’ commitment to do right and to get along?
• How will the rest of the world see us now, and what will that cost us?
• Will there be a backlash?
• Will we learn some sort of lesson from this episode, and never repeat it?

These are profound issues. Ones that are tempting to ignore but carry untold costs.

Ethics matter if we want to continue to be the country we say we are.

We wait to find out what our president-elect will do. Although it appears that his behavior will be remarkably (and unfortunately) consistent with when he was a candidate.

In the meantime, I’m reflecting on the remarkable presidency of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Thank you, above all, for leading with grace.

This was no small feat. Your opposition was resolute. You faced overt and subtle racism as the sad yet inevitable part of being our first black leaders.

Thank you for maintaining your sense of humor.

Mr. President, it’s a gift and I never tired of seeing you use it to needle your opponents, or to just bring some levity to an otherwise impossible job.

Thank you for deescalating our wars.

While you didn’t accomplish all that you set out to, our presence in the Middle East is reduced and you avoided new conflicts. Peace is our goal. You changed the world’s perception of our country as aggressor, using diplomacy to navigate the turbulent waters.

Thank you for decisive action in the financial crisis of 2008.

You let our leaders such as Geithner and Bernanke do their best in the heat of a crisis. There were no best or easy solutions, so doing something quickly was the best course, and you did. The recovery is incomplete and far from equally spread across our workforce, but the crisis is over for now.

Thank you for passing Obamacare.

We are the only democracy without universal healthcare. As the wealthiest nation, we need to treat it as a right and not a privilege.

Obamacare is the first step in that direction. It is flawed and will be replaced with something else. But it will be hard to take coverage away from 20 million Americans who now have it. Many of whose lives were literally saved by it.

There is no progress yet on costs, which are out of control relative to any comparative measure with other countries. This journey will last decades longer but you started it.

Thank you for being the moral voice on gun violence.

You used each tragedy as a reminder of the need for progress on gun control.

However, there is unfinished business.

I wish during your tenure we would have imposed greater control over the financial industry.  Its power and potential for abuse remain largely unchecked.

I wish during your tenure that we found a humanitarian solution to the Syrian crisis.  America should never turn a blind eye to genocide and conflicts that kill innocents en masse.

I wish we could progress on gun violence. In terms of legislation, there are many incremental gains to be had.  In mental health care, we need to accept and respond to the fact that so many mass murderers are afflicted with untreated mental health issues. We now know that mental health is, well, health.

I wish we had cheaper education.  Global trade, automation and the exodus of manufacturing have caused a massive economic dislocation in the last 30 years.  Those who were affected the most need education and social support to learn new skills, not keep old jobs that are no longer viable.

I am sure history will judge you both very well, and it is much deserved.

Your legacy might be sidetracked by your successor for a time, but as you have quoted Dr. King, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  In fact, yours might be the most important moral voices since Dr. King himself.

The bruising election has caused a lot of soul-searching on my part. And I suspect for many others too.

My moral framework values tolerance, inclusion and diversity. I feel like I am in the throes of a deep dilemma:

In the face of intolerant behavior of others, what is the appropriate response?  Tolerance or intolerance?

To that end, this quote has haunted me for a year:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

First, we have a president-elect for which his office demands the respect and support of its citizens. What to do when the person occupying the office behaves intolerantly (to put it kindly)? What exactly is being sanctioned?

Second, we have friends & family around us who exhibit intolerant behaviors. This was the case before and after the election.

Has anything changed in terms of how one should respond? Is it now more important to speak out against such behavior? Or to look past these issues to focus on people’s admirable qualities?

I wish I knew.

 

I sent this letter by mail today.  Here’s a copy of what I wrote.

Dear Senators Harris and Feinstein,

First, thank you for your service. I am proud to have you represent me as a citizen and resident of California.

With our president-elect, there is much fear and doubt. Will he exhibit the needed temperament for the job? Will he represent the interests of all Americans, or just his supporters, or just his own? Who will oppose him when there is a need?

I’m sure I speak for many Californians in saying that your role in our government is more important than ever. California on the whole is a socially progressive state, and wants further progress.

I respectfully ask you to consider doing the following.

Be courageous.

Californians will follow your leadership, and respect your choices, more for your courage of convictions than your specific positions and less for whether they align with the interests of a particular voter segment within our state.

We need fighters right now, because fighting is (sadly) going to be the political norm.

Politics and public discourse are going to happen in the public eye and in the court of public opinion, less in the backrooms of Capitol Hill.

As a former Massachusetts resident, I can tell you how admired Senator Warren is for her tenacity. Perhaps knowing this helps gird you for the same.

Embrace the basis of Trump’s support.

There is a desire for real, material change to the political status quo. Mr. Trump tapped into this desire to be sure.

This is a non-partisan issue, as evidenced by Senator Sanders’ success in the primaries as an outsider running with a platform of “political revolution” including changing the role of special interests in politics.

Term limits, campaign finance reform, and reducing the influence of special interests’ money over politicians and policy – these are unifying changes welcomed by Americans of all political affiliation.

I doubt Americans are interested in nuance at this time. One is either strongly for such charge, or not. Those who are seen as incumbents protecting the status quo will be poorly judged as resisting change.

Please consider being strongly for this.

Protect and expand the social progress we’ve made.

America is better for legalizing gay marriage. And for having elected a black president. And for having a female presidential candidate who won the popular vote. And for decriminalizing marijuana so that huge numbers of people will no longer be incarcerated over what we now deem a lesser or non-offense.

However, hateful speech is amongst us, and may well be followed by hateful action.

The weak, disenfranchised, women, and minorities of all types need a voice for equality. More than ever. And while there has been much progress, there is much more needed until we truly live up to the founding spirit of this great country.

We take for granted perhaps the special diversity and tolerance that we enjoy in California. The rest of our country needs your voice for their sake too.

Thank you.

The next four years are going to be hard for you and for America.

Such is the nature of change; it never happens in a predictable or controlled fashion. Rather, it happens spasmodically and unpredictably.

In such an environment, one could be tempted to entrench along party lines. But it is partisanship that Americans want less of.

We can make social progress, and we can fulfill Americans’ desire for a political system that better serves them.

I hope that you may summon the strength and courage on our behalf and with our support.

Sincerely, Don MacLennan