[March 24, 2017] A number of years ago a friend retiring from the U.S. Navy as a senior navy Seabee, and having just come from command of Naval Construction Regiment, was offered a job in a large city as its City Engineer. A job perfect for him … but he declined. It turns out the city had a dual-City Manager; meaning that two men were administrative heads of it. He rightly interpreted it as having no clear leader and a sign of trouble ahead.
I was proud to have written him a glowing letter of recommendation and had complete confidence that Tom F. could do the job. I’d seen him work with people from all over the world, tackle what looked like impossible jobs, and led a command of Seabees in the early days of the Iraq War. What he had was an uncanny ability to spot problems before anyone else. Leadership was his craft and trade; he was a professional.
There is much being said and written today about the U.S. Democratic Party and the “vacuum” of leadership at the top. That may be an exaggeration but the idea that a political party that has no one who is publically recognized as the head of the organization spells future trouble. In a recent Harvard-Harris Poll survey, 40 percent of Democrats say the party has no leader.1
To most people that means there is no one person who is widely recognized or accountable for its future direction. Who provides the vision? Who provides the glue that holds people together? Those are the fundamental questions that must be answered clearly and without doubt. Otherwise any organization can suffer a drift in its purpose.
We have all seen this occur when weak leaders attempt to run an organization (large or small) and they are not capable of exercising the basics of leadership. The situation with the Democratic Party or the “dual-City Manager” municipality is far worse than a poor leader. Lacking any real leader means that there are existing major internal unresolved issues.
Confusion about who the go-to leader is today or tomorrow is a problem; short and long-term. When people don’t get answers, they leave. Working in a vacuum is not a fun thing to do and is worse than a bad leader. At least in the latter case people understand and can help mitigate the problems. When there’s uncertainty, expect the worst.
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