TRUMP’S RULING BY FEAR CONTINUES TO WREAK HAVOC

History shows that successful US presidents, like leaders in both profit and non-profit organizations, excelled because they were transformational leaders who motivated people by inspiring them. Their approach was simple. They selected very competent people; they viewed them as valuable team members whose work was essential if the leader’s plans were to become reality; they delegated important work to them; they recognized and rewarded performance; and they established and maintained a culture where people felt secure in using their knowledge, experience, and creativity to exercise initiative in finding ways to do their jobs better. Everyone knew their ideas about how to deal with the issues and problems their boss or organization encountered were welcomed. Several by-products of these leader practices and the culture it created were an absence of ”leaks,” minimal turnover, fierce loyalty to the leader, and, inevitably, outstanding results.

Former President Trump’s approach to leadership and his belief in motivating people with fear, taught to him by his father in their real estate business, was very different and yielded very different results.

Let’s contrast the approach to leadership followed by transformational leaders described above with Trump’s actions. We’ll begin with his selection of key people then continue with other differences. He selected people for their willingness to do what he told them to do, not for their knowledge or experience. He held subordinates (a word never used by transformational leaders) accountable for results without delegating them the necessary authority to do their jobs. He honestly believed he knew more about any topic than anyone else and he never hesitated to criticize subordinates or to step in and micromanage anything that came to his attention. He took all the credit when something went well (even if it was not his idea) but never accepted blame when something went wrong (even if the fault was his). He rarely congratulated anyone for a job well done. The inevitable result of this was a culture in which people quickly learned that to keep their jobs, they had to do what they were told, never disagree with him, and offer only suggestions they knew he wanted to hear.

When he became President, his Cabinet and Executive officers soon learned that any variation from the above expectations would result in their being fired. One result of these flawed leadership practices was a turnover of people in these positions that were higher than under any other President. In noticeable contrast to his much-touted actions on the “Apprentice,” he never fired anyone face-to-face. Most learned they had been fired by reading about it in a newspaper or on social media or seeing it on TV. The “lucky” ones received an email or a short letter delivered by an underling.

Three other results were constant “leaks” from frustrated staffers and executives who had ideas that were never listened to, or who were afraid to speak up, the expenditure of tremendous amounts of time attempting to mitigate the effects of Trump’s latest lies, and the lack of delegation by supervisors who believed they would be fired if one of their employees “stepped out of line.”

By the end of his first year, he had discovered that he could control his party’s members of Congress through fear. Senate and House members who voted against his wishes or even questioned one of his ideas had learned he would show his displeasure with them by first criticizing them by name in tweets and speeches, then he would endorse a Trump loyalist to run against them in their state’s Republican primary. Without Trump’s supporters’ votes, they knew they would either lose the primary or be defeated in the general election against a decent Democratic opponent.

After the 2020 election, it got worse. The handful of Congressional Republicans who had publicly agreed with the results of the election or who had spoken up against Trump’s actions related to the insurrection began to receive threats from Trump supporters by email or in-person to them and family members.

The consequences of any leader using fear to control are well known. It does not matter if the organization is profit or non-profit, large or small. Scholars say it could take years to overcome the combined effect on our country of having an unskilled manager whose practices violated uniformly accepted principles of management, who used a transactional leadership approach to negotiation in which his primary concern was always how the end result would benefit him personally, and who ruled his party by fear. Sadly, our former President continues to rule his party by fear. The consequences of this on the Republican Party and the country have been devastating.

To illustrate my point about the harmful effects of Trump’s ruling by fear I could provide dozens of examples. Instead, I will cite one example but it is one the entire country and, in fact, the world, is familiar with. It is one that historians and management writers will write about for decades to follow.

Of course, I am talking about the pandemic caused by Covid-19. The Center For Disease Control (CDC), the organization charged with protecting us against this type of threat, had faced similar challenges before. Three well-known examples are SARS, H1N1, and Ebola, any one of which could have caused catastrophic losses. The major difference between how these and the Covid-19 pandemic was handled was the actions of one man — President Donald J. Trump. First, he closed down the unit created after the H1N1 episode to alert us if some new virus appeared. Despite closing this, and in spite of the questionable competence of the people he had placed in charge of the CDC, experts in the CDC saw what was coming and attempted to warn us. It was at this point that Trump entered the picture. Published audio interviews with him provide unquestioned evidence that he knew we had a major disaster unfolding. Sadly, he didn’t just refuse to publicly acknowledge the problem; he prevented knowledgeable people in the CDC from acting or alerting the public. The months of micromanagement, misrepresentation, and misinformation by him and his administration cost thousands of unnecessary deaths. Then he added to the death toll and further split already divided families, churches, workplaces, and neighbors by making wearing masks and getting vaccinated a political decision.

Then, a quite unassuming man became President. He made ending the pandemic his number one priority. By the time he assumed office, he had solicited and listened to reasoned arguments; he had chosen competent people to run things; he empowered them to act, and he assured the American people that things would get better. His personnel changes at the executive levels of the CDC and his public statements caused the thousands of CDC experts in place to realize their ideas were needed and welcomed. They quickly solved the problems his administration was having getting the vaccines out by dramatically increasing the supply of vaccines. Then, their expert advice helped solve the next problem — how to get the vaccine into arms. In short, the people who were afraid to speak up under Trump were the same people who, then and now, are coming up with workable ideas about how to solve other problems as they arise.

Thanks to Biden and his administration’s leadership, we have begun to turn the corner and our lives are slowly returning to normal. Masks are fast disappearing; businesses have reopened and some are back to pre-Covid levels, and both K-12 and higher education sectors opened to something close to normal last fall.

Unfortunately, despite free and readily available vaccines, the return to normal has been delayed because 30% of those eligible to do so chose not to take the free vaccine despite overwhelming and unequivocal proof that it works.

While the actions of these “resisters” are due to a number of reasons, the primary one is their reliance on cable and social media sources, known for spreading disinformation and for misrepresenting available facts. It has not helped that a Republican Congress and its leaders are so paralyzed by fear of former President Trump that they have been afraid to step up and be forceful advocates of “getting the shot” to the 74 million Trump voters, who represent a high percentage of those who resist being vaccinated. In addition, several Republican governors, seeking Trump’s attention and support when they run for re-election, have passed laws and taken executive actions that have reinforced the “rights” of citizens to refuse to be vaccinated. The refusal of these people to be vaccinated or to wear masks has resulted in thousands of new cases each day, unnecessary deaths, record-setting hospitalizations, and a reluctance to return to work by lots of workers in situations where masks and social distancing guidelines are not followed. The situation in some states finally got so bad they had to institute priority lists for critical care, denying care to people with long-scheduled appointments for treatment. Sadly, as I write this, over 95% of the people filling hospital beds in those states are unvaccinated Republicans.

Unfortunately, while news about Covid infections, hospitalizations, and deaths continues to dominate our evening news, progress on issues that have overwhelming support in the country have not even been brought to the floor of the Senate for discussion, much less a vote because a Senate Republican minority has 50 members who are afraid of Trump. This minority, which represents only 46.5 % of the citizens of this country, clearly has no apparent agenda other than to resist acting on any proposed bill sent to it by the House, even when it is a bill approved by a bipartisan vote in the House.

That’s where we are today. With only a few exceptions, namely Lynn Chaney and Adam Kinzinger in the House, we have a Trump fearing Republican Party without a proactive agenda that is doing nothing to meet the needs of the majority of their own voters, and nothing to meet the needs of the rest of the country. The timing could not be worse. Our country, indeed our democracy, needs a strong second party with leaders who are driven by traditional Republican beliefs and values and who are willing to make policy proposals and debate their Democratic colleagues about them.

The country is facing unparalleled economic and military challenges from China and carefully–orchestrated plans to sabotage our democracy by Russia. Instead of uniting with their Democratic colleagues to face these challenges, we have a Republican Party without any noticeable agenda other than preventing the Senate Democratic majority(whose elected representatives represent 56.5% of American voters)from even debating legislation passed by a bipartisan majority in the House.

History will show that the current Republican Party was ruled by fear of retribution from someone with a serious personality disorder whose only thought and action was about himself — not the country.

United we stand. Divided we may fall.