When Adults Leave the Room!

Good managers lead. Bad managers push. Good managers set achievable goals. Bad managers shoot the moon with no plan. Good managers create a culture of achievement, respect, and trust. Bad managers create a culture of fear, unpredictability, and forced loyalty. Good managers hire people smarter than themselves and use that brainpower to move mountains. Bad managers think they know more than anyone else does and micromanage. You seldom see the lack of managerial skill, ill behavior, and lack of cohesiveness that our national government exhibited the week before Christmas, 2018.

The government shut down, based mostly on temper tantrums. The President announced troop withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan by Tweet, after little or no discussion with the Departments of Defense, State, and our allies, especially the Kurds. The resignation of the Secretary of Defense sent shock waves across the world because he was "the last adult in the room." Markets plunged on the news. Our adversaries publicly rejoiced while allies panicked.  

Since, at least, the first day of the primary season leading up to the 2016 election, people knew that Donald Trump was a very different candidate. He had never managed a government entity, was reported to dislike security briefings and didn’t read much. His was a transactional world. His was a relationship world. His was about the art of the deal. He lived in a zero-sum world. The people elected him in spite of his limitations or because of them.

The real world is nuanced. Personal relationships are important but not as important as the factors that determine the relationship between nation-states: safety, security, trade, and protection from known enemies. And yes, sometimes national values need protection. Because a President has a good relationship with the president of another country doesn’t mean that the two nations have a good relationship.  

Most world leaders tolerated the uncertainty emanating from the White House because they knew that there were a few people, adults, who could keep it from making bad decisions. General Kelly, his Chief-of-Staff was one of the adults. He is leaving. Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State was another. He is gone. General Mattis is gone. By outward appearances, only the sycophants remain to manage the country.

Soon after his victory in the 2016 election, the President-Elect told his aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals.[i] A retrospective of the last two years comes into clearer focus when considered as a daily battle, a daily need to win, a daily need to put people down, the daily need to create news about one’s self, or to bolster a fringe element of society.

Some might say that we need not worry about the lack of adults in the room since their influence has been negligible anyway. General Kelly came to the White House with the expectation that he could bring order and rationality to the place. He couldn’t. General Mattis was not consulted on many military decisions. Rex Tillerson wasn’t consulted all that much about foreign policy and failed to reorganize the State Department. So why worry?

The 2018 mid-term election gave us a hint that the American public can only take so much of one person’s daily messaging and diatribes. Whoever heard of a president scolding the Attorney General in public, in a tweet? Whoever heard of major allies finding out about our war plans in a tweet? Which president tried to use the AG’s office for a personal lawyer instead of the nation’s justice department? Which president has threatened to fire the head of the Federal Reserve Bank, an independent agency over which a president has little authority and no influence?

We should worry, in my opinion. Forget about serious policy differences between parties and party leadership. That is why we have political parties. We should worry about the fact that our elected leader is not an effective leader; rather than unite, he divides; rather than compromise, he grandstands; rather than treat people with respect, he debases; rather than honor the office, he focuses on himself. Many people are glad that he is what he is. They wanted someone who would shake up the system, “drain the swamp.” Fine and good, but that should be a process of well thought out strategies, planned steps, wide communications, and consensus building. We should worry that no more adults will step forward to fill the void.

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[i] Haberman, Thrush, Baker – “Inside Trump’s Hour-by-Hour Battle for Self-Preservation” – NYT December 9, 2017 

Gentler & Kinder

The nation stood still, flags at half-mast. Banks closed, markets shut down, government offices stood empty. George H.W. Bush, forty-first President of the United States had died. President Trump declared Wednesday, December 5, 2018, a National Day of Mourning. For a few days, we became, what “41” had hoped for us; we were a gentler and kinder nation.

The news of the President’s death was not a surprise. Failing health was visible for a couple of years. Seven months before, Barbara Bush, his partner for 73 years passed away. The events that followed showed the extent of the planning that had gone into this week of mourning. President Trump’s immediate proclamation, while he was at the G20 meeting in South America, was soothing and eloquent. Air Force One was sent to Houston to transport the body and the family back to Washington. The Military’s preparation for the reception of the casket, for transportation to the Capital, for standing guard, and for other events was precise.

No one would be surprised if public memories faded in the twenty-five years since he had been in office, but they evidently did not. Lying-in-State in the rotunda of our magnificent Capital, scores of thousands of people stood in line for hours, in freezing weather, to spend a few minutes viewing the casket. It lay on the same catafalque used for the viewing of Abraham Lincoln, and only 32 others in the history of the nation.

The memorial service at the National Cathedral in D.C. was a combination of reverent Episcopal liturgy and civic ritual. Attended by 2,000 or so invited guess, it was very much a public ceremony for the country. The “private” service at St. Mark’s in Houston was a more personal funeral for his family, and his friends. From Houston, the President went by train to his library on the campus of Texas A&M for burial. The seventy-mile route was lined by thousands upon thousands of people wanting a last glimpse, wanting to say goodbye, wanting their children to savor the experience, wanting the family to know how much they respected “41.”

The theme of the week, peeking through all of the military ceremony and liturgies, was palpable: family, honor, and service. He served his country well and history books tell the story. He was a man who prized family, who embedded in them a sense of duty, for to whom much is given… He taught constantly, he gathered the growing clan at every chance and he let them know they were loved.

George H.W.Bush was one of the country’s most prepared servants: decorated war hero, Member of Congress, Envoy to China, Director of the CIA, Ambassador to the U.N. and Vice President. He is thought to be the most effective and important one-term President in our history. He presided over the downfall of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, freed Kuwait from occupation, and much more. Political accomplishments, however, no matter how high or how important, pale in comparison to how he will be remembered in the end: he was a “good man.”

There is no higher achievement.