Lousy Leader

When it comes to Donald Trump, anything you’ve ever read in a business book about leadership can be taken to the top of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge and thrown off into the drink.

I don’t think his leadership is a different style of doing business.

Well, it is, but you know what I mean.

This man is bad.

I can’t possibly see how the results of his “leadership” can turn out well for any of us.

He badmouths anyone who has legitimate criticism of him.

He badmouths people who sacrificed for him.

He makes fun of people’s personal appearances.

He doesn’t just disagree with people; he calls them names.

The other day he called General Stanley McChrystal a dumb dog in so many words.

Trump stated: “General” McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama. Last assignment a total bust. Known for big, dumb mouth. Hillary lover!

Whatever you may feel about General McChrystal, he served his country honorably and is therefore entitled to better treatment than being portrayed as a dumb dog.

And he was a General. No demeaning and unwarranted quotation marks are necessary.

In my experience in healthcare, people who disparage others openly generally fail.

So why does Trump think he can get away with this behavior?

He thinks this way because he has gotten away with it in his construction business.

Over the years he’s bullied people into submission.

He got away with it because he was richer than they were.

This is probably the first time in his life where he has to work with other people.

Well, as Carlito Brigante told Dave Kleinfeld in Carlito’s Way: “It’s too late to go to school.”

So we are stuck with Trump, and I don’t see him going away anytime soon.

The money that put him there evidently there still wants him there. So do his applauding followers.

And why not?

Part of Trump’s appeal is the conditioning that many Americans receive as to what makes a good leader.

Americans have been taught through myth and television for many decades that what makes a good leader is a person who kicks ass and takes names.

Yet a good leader rarely does any of these things.

A good leader is someone who puts himself in the background. A good leader thinks twice and speaks once. A good leader knows that he must take a lot of guff in order to achieve the greater good. A good leader never brags. A good leader highlights the accomplishments of the people beneath him. A good leader minimizes his own accomplishments. A good leader does not engage in petty behavior. A good leader accepts responsibility when he is wrong. A good leader gets down in the muddy trenches with his men if need be. A good leader does not throw his men under the bus.

Trump exhibits none of these leadership skills. He never needed to learn them.

Consequently, he can only fail to deliver.

www.thejfklie.com