1/15/12

David Brooks wrote that leaders tend to perform best when they are humble. To some, this seems counter-intuitive, because in order to be successful at something we must think we are capable of getting the job done. Jim Collins, in his book about management (Good to Great), came to the same conclusion as Brooks. He said great leaders have two things in common: humility and an iron will.

It is often the case that children of successful parents fail to match the achievements of their mothers or fathers. Usually, the explanation is the parents were too demanding and the children grew up feeling they could never live up to the lofty expectations. In his autobiography Thomas Watson Jr. wrote about the transformative experience in his life, which came when he left the Air Force. His commanding general, Hap Arnold, said: “I guess you will go on to become CEO of IBM.” Watson said until then he had never thought about this prospect. But, he had so much respect for Arnold that he reasoned: ‘If he thinks I can do it, maybe I can.’ Talking about his father (Thomas Watson,Sr.) he said “he covered me like a wet blanket.” When he was 13 years old he suffered from clinical depression.

The junior Watson did end up running IBM and he was the one who brought the company into the computer business.

The reason humility is so important for success is that we must be capable of assessing our strengths and weaknesses. When Barack Obama entered the White House he was often compared with Abraham Lincoln, who had filled his cabinet with people who had been his political enemies. Doris Kearns had written a bestseller about this (Team of Rivals). Obama had allegedly shown the same self-assurance when he surrounded himself with strong-willed individuals, such as Larry Summers, Paul Volcker, and Rahm Emanuel.

Most of Obama’s original team is now gone. Matthew Continetti writes in the Weekly Standard (The Worst White House Aide) that the “revivalists” have defeated the’survivalists.’Obama has retreated into the inner circle, which consists of those he feels he can really trust. The one who Continetti calls the worst adviser is Valerie Jarrett. She is the one who wanted Obama to go to Copenhagen to try to get the International Olympic Committee to choose Chicago for the 2016 Olympics (they chose Rio instead). She is the one who hired Van Jones, the environmentalist, who was later fired, in part because he was a 2001 “truther.”

Revivalists want Obama to be true to his convictions, whereas survivalists wanted him to succeed in politics through compromise. Emanuel, for example, advised against shutting down Guantanamo and pushing ahead with Obamacare.

Continetti writes that Jarrettt has stated she bonded with Obama because they both spent time abroad when they were children (she in Iran and he in Indonesia). That experience made them look at America from a different perspective. America is one of many countries, not the center of the universe.

Continetti suspects the bond exists also because Jarrett tells Obama what he wants to hear. She says Obama is always bored because he is so much more talented than the ordinary person. He presumably was never happy is his previous jobs because they were too small for him. What can he do now that he is president of the United States? Is he still hoping for a bigger job?

In any event, Obama does not seem to derive much satisfaction from governing America. It is too frustrating and messy. Campaigning provides the opportunity to tell a cleaner story. The solution to America’s problems is income equality.