Here is the perfect lesson in leadership. Not to be political, but to share a point. Clearly, if the results were different, I’m wondering if the actions would have been any different. However, this was a poignant lesson in leadership just the same.
Election night thousands of Clinton supporters waited for hours throughout the day. They stood and watched, all exuberant when the initial polling reports came in. They stood and watched as the numbers started coming in. They stood and watched as the expected New England states started flipping for Clinton. They stood and watched as critical swing states like Ohio and Florida were lost. They stood and waited for their leader.
They stood and waited for something that never came!
Behind the scenes, Clinton was calling Trump to concede, while on stage she had sent her Campaign Manager, John Podesta, address her supporters. “Go home,” he said, “we’re not done yet.”
Yes…yes, you are.
The moment the leader fails to be a leader and abdicates their responsibility to another is the moment the leader stops becoming a leader.
By sending Podesta to address (and lie) to her thousands of supporters, she has shown that this is all about her and not about them. A servant leader would have empathized with her people and would have known that they needed her to speak.
Instead, she called, conceded, and went home to bed. The next day she called a press conference at 10 am, but didn’t speak until almost noon. This time it was only to staff, aides, and cameras. Worse yet, the loss was blamed, through veiled statements, on a system designed to keep a woman from the Oval Office.
This was the best display of poor leadership, demonstrated at the highest levels. What to learn from this:
1. If you lose, something fails, it breaks, etc., get out there and address your people. Be transparent and provide them closure.
2. You’re in charge. Accept the blame and move on. Blaming anything and everything else on the failure might make you feel better about yourself, but it robs you of control of the situation. Taking ownership, means taking control and that’s what your people want to see–it provides hope, not defeat.
Please take a lesson from this and not be like this.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2016/11/9/13572218/clinton-concession-speech-not-speaking?client=ms-android-att-us
Good point. And I too wonder what the response would have been if he who shall not be named had not won…:)
Now write a contrasting piece…one of an example of good leadership. A recent example I can think of is the CEO at Starbucks and the actions he took when 2 black men were arrested in a Starbucks store. I thought that was good leadership.
I’ll do it!