NEWS

WIRES

OTHER

Ask Not for Whom the Bell Tolls...Unless You're in the Democratic Leadership!

By David McCleary

If you're paddling in a canoe and a major storm hits, all you care about is your fellow paddler and his or her commitment to the task at hand. That's it. During the storm, nothing else matters. Last week, Massachusetts' voters told their political leaders and the rest of the country, "We don't care who you are â€" help us paddle or get out of the boat."

Fifteen months ago, President Obama carried Massachusetts by twenty-six points. Last week his party's candidate for the Senate lost the state by five points. Mr. Obama won Virginia by six points and a year later, his party's candidate for governor lost by eighteen points. New Jersey's governor, a Democratic incumbent, lost by four points in 2009 after President Obama had carried the state by sixteen points the previous year. These are significant shifts. They seem to represent the citizens' outcry; "Stop spending money we don't have, stop growing without regard for common sense and give us back control of our lives." Memo to Democratic leadership: That ringing in your ears is the Liberty Bell tolling. Consider it a wakeup call.

There are four fatal leadership flaws that have hurt the current administration. They are coercion, disconnectedness, exploitation, and power hoarding. These are poor governing strategies that become deadly over time. In a democracy like ours, we pay our leaders to lead and we demand good value for our investment.

Leadership is about facilitation not force. It honors people as equals. Coercion is distasteful, passe and obsolete. We feel as though we've been forced to swallow a substandard health care pill and wrap our arms around a stimulus package that hasn't felt the least bit stimulating. You won't hear a colleague at the water cooler say, "You know, the government hasn't rammed anything down my throat in a long time. I miss it, really." Driving the health care bus over the American people has not been an effective leadership move. Just ask the voters of Massachusetts. Their message was clear: "Stop it. Fix it...or we'll find someone who will."

The Obama administration has been accused of disconnectedness and closed-off leadership. Good leadership requires good relations with constituents and good relationships require vulnerability. It's that simple. Good leaders don't operate in a vacuum. Many, striving for success, submit in some way to the seductions of tyranny, and within this limited submission they find their best efforts yield either benevolent dictatorships or Ivory-Tower-style-manipulations. The Democrats are guilty on both counts. At this point, they should realize their myopic view from the Ivory Tower has severe limitations...and they disregard this standard of leadership at their own peril.

The rash of corporate bailouts and lavish executive bonuses irritate taxpayers because it feels like exploitation. People are asking each other, "Why not bailout all of us? Why not flood the banking system with cash by paying off taxpayer mortgages?" Taking money from Peter to pay Paul is a bad leadership idea if Peter is the citizen, and Paul represents the already exploitative corporate monarchy. When politicians side too overtly with corporate 'sugar daddies', they usually receive a bite in their political backsides later on.

Throughout 2009, the banks tightened credit and turned down loan applications on millions of taxpayers who had just sponsored their bailouts. With long memories and short fuses, electorates like the one in Massachusetts just sent a clear message to Capitol Hill: "Enough is enough!"

The Obama administration unconsciously orchestrated the same scenario that causes unions to form in abusive companies: They pushed wide open the power differential between leader and follower. People want to know that leaders are doing their job but can smell power mongering from miles away.

Power is not a scarce resource to be hoarded. Leadership as social paradigm is only truly effective when shared. Our current democratic leadership has not been sharing well lately and is now feeling the repercussions. Effective leaders constantly adapt to changing environments because they are in tune with their constituency. During a storm, they paddle from the center of the boat in perfect harmony with their partners. In other words, they forge alliances across party lines for the good of the electorate. They also make sacrifices when necessary.

In this case, they must allow businesses to fail, especially the big ones. To recover they must remember the taxpayers who just subsidized the mother of all bailouts. We all want a health care overhaul that leans a little more on big insurance and a little less on Joe the Plumber. We do not want the constrictive scenarios of Canada and Europe nor will we sanction unfair alliances that provide special treatment for some states.

To be effective, leaders must collaborate not coerce, explain not exploit, and humbly stay connected with their constituency...not the corporate monarchy. Otherwise, they need not ask "for whom the bell tolls." They need only look in a mirror.

David McCleary is the author of Leaving Prisons: Release Your Trapped Value and the CEO of www.FlawlessLeaders.com