“When Character Was King”
By Peggy Noonan
Penguin Books, 2001
Understandably, most people of this country struggle over one question: Who should be the next President of this not-so-strong Republic? The choices, until recently, were among the incumbent President who is rating low, a former Senator and Education Secretary who is concededly intelligent and seasoned on the political stage, and a Senator whose reputation, however, is stuck with his tour duty as a controversial chief of the national police.
All three have great issues attached to their aspirations: experience for the incumbent, education for the former Secretary, and peace and order for the top policeman. Is that all?
One doesn’t think so. An aspirant to the vice presidency, Senator Loren Legarda, after noting that aspirants can casually and conveniently address issues that endear themselves to the electorate, reduced the choice to one fundamental: the candidate’s character. The ultimate test is the character of the individual – his or her integrity, courage and demonstrated capability to do what is right, not what is expedient or popular.
What about competence, educational attainment, and preparedness for the job? These points have assumed larger significance with the entry of one of the most popular action stars joining the political fray – and some people were advancing arguments that were used to elect a former President who ended up in jail; the same argument that tries to establish affinity with the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger and, in the early eighties, the assumption to the U.S. Presidency of Ronald Reagan.
Our view of Ronald Reagan was too simplistic compared to the many-sided personality of this Great Communicator. The book, “When Character Was King,” a story of Reagan by one of his finest speech writers, reveals a lot about this highly successful and much-loved President the Americans ever had.
He controlled inflation, perked up the American economy, raised individual incomes, reduced taxes, and made the U.S. the pre-eminent player in the geo-political war where the antagonist, Soviet Russia, turned out to be a non-power at all.
What began the making of Reagan the communicative leader? Noonan is insightful: “As president of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan learned how to negotiate, play tough and get tough, how to feint, stall and vamp for time, how to wait them out, how to smoke out the real reason for an impasse. He learned that it was not personal, it’s business. It’s politics.”
Reagan was generally a nice guy. One time, he lost his temper because his reserved room was given to someone else. He berated the man, was rude and impatient – and he left. Asked if the counter person saw Reagan again: “Oh sure, the next morning when he came to apologize.”
Soon enough, Reagan has perfected his way with words, and dished out his version of reality masterfully. On switching parties – from Democrat to Republican, Reagan said: “We didn’t change… they changed.”
From actor, Reagan increasingly was involved in talking about governance, about issues that citizens wanted to hear – from his denunciations of big government to criticisms of a heavy tax burden. As related by Noonan, the turning point of Reagan’s life was when he spoke for half an hour on NBC. That was the moment. Noonan says: “He stepped into national politics, became a presence in the nation’s political life. He stepped into history.”
He was fifty four when he ran for governor. The opponent, Pat Brown, dismissed Reagan as an actor, and implied “he was a phony, mouthing words as an actor does from a script he hasn’t written.” But Reagan was a good writer, had ear for music and employed cadence in his written and spoken words – in plays and his stories. As history would have it, Reagan won by a landslide over Brown.
After the governorship, the Presidency was not far behind. After the primaries, the Republican bet had to face the Democratic incumbent: Jimmy Carter. The high point of his campaign was at the “Reagan-Carter Debate” in 1980 when Reagan took command of television, and left these words ringing: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
In a book that is full of insights about the man in private and the President in public, author Noonan observes: “Nothing internal, within him, changed. His character seemed to be an unbroken line that didn’t waver or soar too high or low. He was not given to conceit, didn’t play with people when he had the chance, didn’t show up places late because he’s the most important and interesting man invited, so the fun will have to start when he gets there.”
Reagan’s dealing with issues at home and abroad has been characterized by candor and devotion to truth, according to the author. Noonan says: “He loved the truth… He thought the truth is the only foundation on which can be built something strong and good and lasting – because only truth endures. Lies die. He wanted to crowd out the false with the true.”
When politicians in the past sidestepped the issue of attacking the Soviet Union, Reagan called it the “The Evil Empire.” In one speech, he told Soviet Union Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev, “Tear down this wall!” referring to the Berlin Wall.
The author adds an insight: “He didn’t know how very soon the wall would fall, and literally a six-ton piece of it would be shipped to America to be installed at the Reagan Library.”
To many of us engrossed in comparisons and in our search for parallels, Reagan’s portrait can be used and misused by candidates. Surely, many of these aspirants pale in comparison with this President who happens to have been a university graduate, has ample gray matter between his ears, has the skills of a master negotiator, the courage to do what is right – and one who has found the truth as the best weapon to craft great policies, take resolute action, and gain victory.
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Survive the dangers of leading
“Leadership on the Line”
By Ronald A. Heifetz & Marty Linsky
Harvard Business School Press, 2002
In a lunch with former Senate President Jovito Salonga, a friend made an obvious comment that “politics is dirty.” The venerable leader took a pause from taking his lunch and said: “You know, politics can be a noble calling.” And he narrated to us what obsessed him to run for political office – to achieve real freedom for the country – and to secure justice. His role in leading the Senate “that said No!” to the American military bases was one of the goals that gave him passion and intensity.
But there are risks involved in leadership. Senator Salonga almost did not survive the Plaza Miranda bombing. Still, this calling called leadership continues to beckon, and young and old, men and women respond, ignoring the dangers. This book is for such leaders – so they can master – if not survive – the perils of leading.
In politics, in the business world and in civil society circles – the same question resounds: Shall one take a leadership role, leave the peace and quiet of a low-profile job, and place your “leadership on the line”? It is actually putting your head on the chopping black, if you please pardon the shocking metaphor.
That is the title of this book, authored by professors of the Center for Public Leadership of the John F. Kennedy School of Government – where a number of our leaders had some training – with visible or invisible benefits!
The authors, showing intimate familiarity with the multifarious hazards of leaders, put it squarely: “To lead is to live dangerously …when you lead people through difficult change, you challenge what people hold dear – their daily habits, tools, loyalties and ways of thinking – with nothing more to offer perhaps than a possibility.”
And yet even if the dangers abound, some leaders – like Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho – chose to leave the ordered life of a highly successful investment banker and join the “snake pit” in the Palace. The book says that there are indeed those who are driven by a genuine desire to serve.
The first part of the book does not mince words about the dangers. The authors warn: “When exercising leadership, you risk getting marginalized, diverted, attacked, or seduced. When people resist adaptive work, their goal is to shoot down those who exercise leadership in order to preserve what they have.”
If you are a leader, you can identify with many of the hazards of leadership – from being placed in a freezer to being led to lose focus; from being attacked (verbally -- and even physically) to being seduced to take up a cause for its fleeting appeal.
After amply warning the reader about land mines and traps along the way, the authors discuss at length the suitable responses to the dangers – or challenges. One of the more useful advice is to “get on the balcony.” The book explains:
“Any military officer knows the importance of maintaining the capacity for reflection, even in the ‘fog of war’. Great athletes can at once play the game and observe it as a whole – as Walt Whitman described it, ‘being both in and out of the game.’ … We call this skill ‘getting off the dance floor and going to the balcony… We all get swept into action when it becomes intense or personal and we need most to pause.”
The book is also instructive to people who, when a business plan has been written, look at it as one “cast in granite.” “Leadership is an improvisational art,” the book says. And it goes on to narrate the story of General Dwight Eisenhower.
After leading the successful D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy, the first thing former American President Eisenhower did was “to throw out the plan.” The authors enshrine two leadership qualities: discipline and flexibility. You take action, step back and assess the results of the action, reassess the plan, then go to the dance floor and make the next move.
“Think politically,” is another valuable advice, not for the practitioners of the art – the politicians – but for business executives who are so focused on results that they forget the need to have some political savvy. Many sad and happy stories are documented in the book.
More strategies -- orchestrating the conflict and letting the issue -- ripen will serve the leader in good stead after he places himself on the line. On anchoring yourself, the book tells the engaging story of two good looking American presidential aspirants – one lost, the other won.
The press accused both Gary Hart and Bill Clinton of philandering. They responded in very different ways. Hart counterattacked and got defensive. Bill Clinton took a very different road. He went on 60 Minutes right after the Super Bowl, sat before the cameras holding hands with his wife, and essentially admitted that he had strayed. Hart responded personally; Clinton, strategically and more honestly.
The book’s aphorism is packed with meaning: “Your management of an attack, more than the substance of the accusation, determines your fate.” The perils of leadership are like landmines in a political landscape. This book shows you how to gingerly – and confidently – side step or master the terrain.
By Ronald A. Heifetz & Marty Linsky
Harvard Business School Press, 2002
In a lunch with former Senate President Jovito Salonga, a friend made an obvious comment that “politics is dirty.” The venerable leader took a pause from taking his lunch and said: “You know, politics can be a noble calling.” And he narrated to us what obsessed him to run for political office – to achieve real freedom for the country – and to secure justice. His role in leading the Senate “that said No!” to the American military bases was one of the goals that gave him passion and intensity.
But there are risks involved in leadership. Senator Salonga almost did not survive the Plaza Miranda bombing. Still, this calling called leadership continues to beckon, and young and old, men and women respond, ignoring the dangers. This book is for such leaders – so they can master – if not survive – the perils of leading.
In politics, in the business world and in civil society circles – the same question resounds: Shall one take a leadership role, leave the peace and quiet of a low-profile job, and place your “leadership on the line”? It is actually putting your head on the chopping black, if you please pardon the shocking metaphor.
That is the title of this book, authored by professors of the Center for Public Leadership of the John F. Kennedy School of Government – where a number of our leaders had some training – with visible or invisible benefits!
The authors, showing intimate familiarity with the multifarious hazards of leaders, put it squarely: “To lead is to live dangerously …when you lead people through difficult change, you challenge what people hold dear – their daily habits, tools, loyalties and ways of thinking – with nothing more to offer perhaps than a possibility.”
And yet even if the dangers abound, some leaders – like Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho – chose to leave the ordered life of a highly successful investment banker and join the “snake pit” in the Palace. The book says that there are indeed those who are driven by a genuine desire to serve.
The first part of the book does not mince words about the dangers. The authors warn: “When exercising leadership, you risk getting marginalized, diverted, attacked, or seduced. When people resist adaptive work, their goal is to shoot down those who exercise leadership in order to preserve what they have.”
If you are a leader, you can identify with many of the hazards of leadership – from being placed in a freezer to being led to lose focus; from being attacked (verbally -- and even physically) to being seduced to take up a cause for its fleeting appeal.
After amply warning the reader about land mines and traps along the way, the authors discuss at length the suitable responses to the dangers – or challenges. One of the more useful advice is to “get on the balcony.” The book explains:
“Any military officer knows the importance of maintaining the capacity for reflection, even in the ‘fog of war’. Great athletes can at once play the game and observe it as a whole – as Walt Whitman described it, ‘being both in and out of the game.’ … We call this skill ‘getting off the dance floor and going to the balcony… We all get swept into action when it becomes intense or personal and we need most to pause.”
The book is also instructive to people who, when a business plan has been written, look at it as one “cast in granite.” “Leadership is an improvisational art,” the book says. And it goes on to narrate the story of General Dwight Eisenhower.
After leading the successful D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy, the first thing former American President Eisenhower did was “to throw out the plan.” The authors enshrine two leadership qualities: discipline and flexibility. You take action, step back and assess the results of the action, reassess the plan, then go to the dance floor and make the next move.
“Think politically,” is another valuable advice, not for the practitioners of the art – the politicians – but for business executives who are so focused on results that they forget the need to have some political savvy. Many sad and happy stories are documented in the book.
More strategies -- orchestrating the conflict and letting the issue -- ripen will serve the leader in good stead after he places himself on the line. On anchoring yourself, the book tells the engaging story of two good looking American presidential aspirants – one lost, the other won.
The press accused both Gary Hart and Bill Clinton of philandering. They responded in very different ways. Hart counterattacked and got defensive. Bill Clinton took a very different road. He went on 60 Minutes right after the Super Bowl, sat before the cameras holding hands with his wife, and essentially admitted that he had strayed. Hart responded personally; Clinton, strategically and more honestly.
The book’s aphorism is packed with meaning: “Your management of an attack, more than the substance of the accusation, determines your fate.” The perils of leadership are like landmines in a political landscape. This book shows you how to gingerly – and confidently – side step or master the terrain.
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