Mayor Kenney was frustrated on July 4th regarding the shooting on that special day. Many have criticized him to the point of wanting his resignation because he blurted out that, “he was glad when he wasn’t mayor and would not have to worry about what bad thing might occur on any given day.“ The response to his words was fast and furious essentially indicating that he had checked out of wanting to be mayor. Others piled on stating that he had checked out long ago. Kenney’s clarification the next day was that he was human like everyone else and responded without thinking. For him the shooting was something that he took personally and regretted saying those words. A commentator reflecting on Kenney’s words of clarification said that Kenney’s words reminded him of a line in a song, “Too Long in the Wasteland,” sung by James McMurtry: “So I didn’t mean to say it, but I meant what I said.”
Given a choice, I prefer to have leaders who show their humanity and are emotional. I can’t think of a better leader to help the American people than President Biden who has become our Griever- In- Chief, largely because he has undergone the most significant kind of loss that one could imagine. I prefer that over Mitch McConnell’s style making important announcements with no facial expression or that someone alive is inside of him during his uttering of his words. I am always waiting for the yawn to follow. I want someone who does, as Kenney did, take serious issues personally. Some see that as a weakness where I see it as a strength.
But leadership is paradoxical. It has to be empathetic and emotionally involved, but it has to be self-confident at the same time. I know someone who is in the middle of life and death decisions all the time. He is a surgeon who has operated on me. One of his patients asked me if I had ever in my life meant someone as “self-confident” as this particular doctor. He didn’t mean it as a positive attribute. He may have been looking for some confirmation bias that I would agree with his negative assessment of this individual.
My response surprised my friend when I said, “I want someone who is over the top in self- confidence regarding what he is doing. This doctor communicates in a decisive fashion and always has a plan moving forward. I always tell people wo are seeking a surgical proceeding to ask first how many procedures has the doctor done and what is the plan moving forward. Does he or she know where we are going. What’s the expectation!
People who have come to see me for help will often say, “You have been there. You know what it is like.” You communicate self- confidence when people know metaphorically how many “procedures” you have done. The first time someone said to me, “This is not your first rodeo. You have been here before!”, I didn’t know what the rodeo image meant. People want to know that you have been in the ring with the problem right in front of you or attempting to throw you.
President Biden by his many years of service in the Senate and as a Vice President was well prepared him for the Presidency. His foreign policy experience brought NATO together in support of Ukraine after the former president spent his time golfing and forgot that there is a world beyond America. I do think that Biden could have planned more for all contingencies related to leaving Afghanistan and he has not been as good as we needed him to be on the domestic agenda, but a lot of that has been beyond his control.
Malcolm Gladwell, the thought leader, wrote about seeing things in a different way. His books are all about helping the reader see what makes a person tick. He said you need to do something for 10,000 hours before you become good at anything. He also said that you can tell everything that you need to know about a person in the first 15 seconds of your meeting. He has the research to prove it.
If I am meeting a leader, I want to know that she is empathetic and takes the concerns of others personally and is self-confident. The rest is icing on the cake.
Whenever I meet with someone who wants something from me, I will sometimes look at them after their presentation and say, “I Like you.” They will say, “Thank you.” They think that I am being nice. What I am really saying is, “You have passed the 15 seconds test.”
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