I appreciate your detailed breakdown of the sometimes murky relationship between personal virtue and professional conduct, but I feel like Bernstein putting Carter and Johnson in the "bad" category while not mentioning Reagan kind of renders his argument moot
A fantastic column. Bernstein (and so many others) completely misapprehend how leadership functions. Leadership is inherently about moral choices—be it the leadership of a nation or the leadership of a company. Grasping that fundamental is the first step toward great leadership. You can’t be an evil person and be a great leader or even a great politician (unless you bizarrely imagine the only measure of a politician is in winning office).
The U.S. has a myth of the "citizen-soldier" and "citizen-leader" that harks back to the Roman hero Cincinnatus—who was begged by the Roman Senate to stop farming and become a Dictator in order to defeat the Aequi (who Rome had tried to conquer repeatedly over the years, and they would attack Rome back whenever it look weak enough to take advantage of), so he did, defeated the Aequi in sixteen days, then handed power back to the Senate and returned to farming.
As I've pointed out before, Cincinnatus is an aspirational figure, and most REAL citizen-leaders are neither military geniuses nor so un-enamoured of absolute power that they just hand it back once the reason for their seizing it is achieved. (Neither Sulla nor Caesar did, after all.) While we love to think that the average citizen has the wit, understanding, and basic decency that that untrustworthy breed known as "politicians" lack, the truth is that the only difference between most citizens and most politicians is lack of access to the people who would pay to put them in power, so they could help advance those people who paid's various agendas.
So, yes, we need both—somebody who is a good person AND a good politician, in order to make their promises a reality. Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio was by all accounts a good person, but his administration seems like a lot of good ideas he couldn't implement because he'd alienated several core constituencies, including the Jewish community and the NYPD (who seemed to HATE him!).
I appreciate your detailed breakdown of the sometimes murky relationship between personal virtue and professional conduct, but I feel like Bernstein putting Carter and Johnson in the "bad" category while not mentioning Reagan kind of renders his argument moot
I don't think he was giving an exhaustive list!
Reagan is someone who was pretty competent as a president in a lot of ways, but who was an evil person and so did a lot of harm.
A fantastic column. Bernstein (and so many others) completely misapprehend how leadership functions. Leadership is inherently about moral choices—be it the leadership of a nation or the leadership of a company. Grasping that fundamental is the first step toward great leadership. You can’t be an evil person and be a great leader or even a great politician (unless you bizarrely imagine the only measure of a politician is in winning office).
I don't know that I'd say he *completely* misunderstands! I find his writing helpful in general, even if I disagreed on some points here.
Fair enough.
Excellently argued!
Added to the list of misconceptions that are taken for granted as truth in America and which need to change if we are to rise from the ashes.
The U.S. has a myth of the "citizen-soldier" and "citizen-leader" that harks back to the Roman hero Cincinnatus—who was begged by the Roman Senate to stop farming and become a Dictator in order to defeat the Aequi (who Rome had tried to conquer repeatedly over the years, and they would attack Rome back whenever it look weak enough to take advantage of), so he did, defeated the Aequi in sixteen days, then handed power back to the Senate and returned to farming.
As I've pointed out before, Cincinnatus is an aspirational figure, and most REAL citizen-leaders are neither military geniuses nor so un-enamoured of absolute power that they just hand it back once the reason for their seizing it is achieved. (Neither Sulla nor Caesar did, after all.) While we love to think that the average citizen has the wit, understanding, and basic decency that that untrustworthy breed known as "politicians" lack, the truth is that the only difference between most citizens and most politicians is lack of access to the people who would pay to put them in power, so they could help advance those people who paid's various agendas.
So, yes, we need both—somebody who is a good person AND a good politician, in order to make their promises a reality. Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio was by all accounts a good person, but his administration seems like a lot of good ideas he couldn't implement because he'd alienated several core constituencies, including the Jewish community and the NYPD (who seemed to HATE him!).