leadership – level-headed leadership®

FOLLOW THE LEADER

May 1, 2019May 2, 2019 by BREAKING, posted in BREAKING

by David R. Schleicher

How does a group of people come to be so under the spell of a leader that they become willing to do things that in the absence of that leader they would consider appalling? It’s a question that has fascinated me since childhood. The 2016 English translation of Volker Ullrich’s Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 (whether in print or by audiobook) provides some clues. Between that book and related reading and research on the topic, I gleaned this…

If there was one lesson the Führer understood better than most, it was that history is not inevitable. A slight change here or there—more opposition or less resistance—can turn the tide in a completely different direction. And so it was—85 years ago—he nervously awaited public reaction to Operation Hummingbird–what he later would label the “Night of the Long Knives.”

Just some 15 months earlier, his party had won the 1933 elections with less than 44% of the vote. On one hand they appeared to have taken control of the country. United by nationalism, beneath the surface they nonetheless were a collection of divergent forces with competing goals and centers of power. While rivals were encouraged to compete against each other for his approval, in the end he could not tolerate equals or half-allies.

Consider his Chief of Staff, Röhm, head of the storm troopers—a man whose brutality had been instrumental in their mutual rise to power. But also gay, showing socialist tendencies, and too often treating Adolf as an equal readily subject to criticism. And so Röhm made the cut for the Night of the Long Knives.

Then there was Kurt von Schleicher, a general, former Chancellor, and master of political intrigue. At one point he was certain he could tame Hitler, eventually resigning and recommending Hitler be appointed to take his place. Even that was not enough acquiescence. Adolf had a very long memory for those who had crossed him. Warned of the threat the Führer posed to him, Schleicher scoffed. The Night of the Long Knives would prove him deeply mistaken.

Elisabeth Schleicher, Kurt’s recent bride, would die that night too. If there was to be any regret from the mass massacre of the Führer’s enemies, it would be her death. Operational sloppiness. Risking turning public opinion against a plot so evil that widespread support was essential. Historian Volker Ullrich notes Goebbel’s view that “No mistakes other than Frau Schleicher also going down. A shame, but no changing that.”

90 confirmed kills, the actual number possibly twice that.

When needed, Adolf Hitler could charm a crowd of businessmen, reassuring them he was entirely sane and had their best interest at heart. But for something like Operation Hummingbird, he would work himself into a frenzy, his voice at times becoming a high-pitched squeal. Yet it would have to be sold to the public as a rational matter of national security: the death of “a small clique of professional saboteurs” a small price for peace.

It was genius, really, not hiding it as a shameful act of terror by an insecure dictator, instead openly taking responsibility for the murders. Relying on the kind hearts and trusting nature of the citizenry to come to agree such heinous acts had been essential to the survival of the nation. The victims were accused of “high treason”—leaving the Führer no choice but to take emergency action to avert disaster. The legislature would be asked after the fact to pass a law justifying what was portrayed as having saved the country from civil war.

The real surprise was how little surprise followed. Even men like Franz von Papen, with a long career in public service and whose colleagues had been murdered, offered praise rather than protest. Elder statesmen like Hindenburg were no obstacle either: he sent Hitler a congratulatory telegram for having saved the populace from a serious threat.

Uncertainty over the bloodshed gave way to what Goebbels described as a widespread “limitless enthusiasm.” The Führer went from admired to deified. Even academics justified the slaughter, writing that the Hitler had acted within the bounds of law. Meanwhile a countryman from exile in Switzerland wrote of the Führer and those around him being “gangsters of the lowest sort,” reflecting “decadent stupidity and bloodthirsty humiliation.”

As with his invasions that easily could have caused an early end to his reign had they not been responded to with muted alarm and an assumption that it would be easy at a later point to halt such behavior, the success of Operation Hummingbird persuaded Hitler that there truly were no limits to his power. The line from Night of the Long Knives to Kristallnacht was one of progressive brutality, for a country who numbly came to view it all as normal.

A person who lied so often his own staff wondered if he understood the concept of truth, it would take overwhelming evidence to convince the Führer his power was at its end. Bombs making a wasteland of what had been one of the most modern and largest of European cities. Nearly 70,000 tons of British and American explosives dropped on Berlin.

Hitler would take his own life, leaving his disciples a legacy of trauma, shame, and denial. They would be left to pick of the pieces for a man whose narcissism, self-delusion, and arrogant belief in his own infallibility from the start bore the seeds of his and their destruction.

David Schleicher is an attorney who splits his time between Waco and Washington, D.C. He appreciates a pre-check of this piece done by Baylor University Professor of History David W. Hendon.

Oreo Cookies, Cash, and a Gun

July 23, 2017July 23, 2017 by BREAKING, posted in Uncategorized

by David Schleicher

A friend who did work overseas for the government explained to me how she would deal with those days when she had to venture into the middle of a conflict zone. “I’d take a box of Oreos, a wad of cash, and a gun.” She found there were many times the cash was needed and more than one time when the tension level was eased with the cookies. As a result, the gun stayed in its holster.

All too often, we encounter–or see in ourselves–someone who carries nothing but cookies, or only cash, or goes to the gun as step one.

Few question that being a jerk can be damaging and–at the top–even deadly to an organization. The platitude that “one person can make a difference” often has proven itself true as a narcissist drives a country or a company into the ground. Today’s question is a more difficult one: when does your niceness become dysfunctional? All cookies all the time?

The amiable-looking fellow above, Neville Chamberlain, is as good a starting place as any. A British Prime Minister, he reached a 1938 agreement with Adolf Hitler that made some concessions in an effort to quench the dictator’s thirst for territory. What Chamberlain got in return was not peace, but his photo in the dictionary under the word “appeasement.”

Attempting to buy peace (whether with cookies, cash, or by looking away at territorial grabs) with a megalomaniac merely delays a war, in the process deluding an organization into believing it need not be preparing for one. Likewise, if you’re viewed as someone who can be easily rolled because your highest goal is keeping the peace, those who most seek you out will not be prospective clients and business partners, but bullies. (The same applies to your personal life.)

Treat people how you want to be treated is a rule as old as time and a precept that is the universal to the major religions. As few of us enjoy being bullied, it makes sense to start with collegiality and kindness (the Oreos). Sometimes it takes another level of negotiation to get things accomplished (equivalent to the cash). If all else fails, don’t forget that you came prepared with your metaphorical gun.

Figuring out who you are dealing with is half the battle: someone who views you with hostility but is open to change? A gatekeeper who needs lunch money before letting you in? Or a narcissist who will exploit every opening?

Next time you are dropped into hostile territory, don’t go it alone…pack all three.

Don’t Read This! Or Else!

July 1, 2017August 18, 2017 by BREAKING, posted in Uncategorized

However much you may have enjoyed being a child, chances are you don’t like being treated like one now. And that you feel like you are being treated as a child when someone gives you an order about how to behave. Such as ordering you not to read a particular blog post.

When you feel like someone is treating you like you are a child, it is natural to respond like a child. Whatever you may say out loud, your inner two-year old is yelling, “NO!” Like a child, when someone orders that you don’t do “X”, your desire to do “X” is suddenly increased. “Reactance” is what psychologists call that urge you feel to do the opposite of what you are ordered to do, as your mind resists what it perceives as a threat to its freedom.

You probably would agree that direct orders and threats rarely motivate you to do your best. Having served on a school board for six years, I found that someone in a conflict with the district who threatened to sue or to make sure a particular board member lost their next election rarely motivated my fellow board members in the intended direction.

In my years as a lobbyist and in my later practice of law, many times I have seen those threatened take their eyes off of the problem to be solved and instead focus on fighting the threat-maker. We know threats don’t work on us, yet it is one of the first things we try on others when we are not getting our way.

Clients sometimes will ask me why I didn’t raise more hell with the lawyer on the other side of the case. The reason is that when an attorney on the other side from me starts yelling and making loud demands, I begin to think that what I have been doing for my client has been effective enough to get under their skin. In other words, it tells me I might just be winning. I also cut off negotiations until the lawyer can get back some self-control and I may document the details of the conversation in an email or a letter.

Lawyers on the other side of cases have told me that they appreciate that I argue the law and the facts, rather than pounding my shoe on the table. Some of those same lawyers have come to me when they got in legal trouble or referred friends. Shoe pounding does make some clients feel better, but it does not serve their interests.

As challenging as it is not to make threats the first arrow in our quill, it is hard work training ourselves when threatened to stay focused on what is in our interests versus on the urge to squash the threat-maker. It may be, for example, that a settlement would be in your interest even though the threat you just heard makes you want to fight to your last dollar. A truly devious opponent may threaten you simply to make you act irrationally in response.

There are rare occasions when a threat is necessary and even rarer instances when it is productive. If you are going to have to impose a very severe consequence on someone–such as firing them or invading their country–then it is rational to give advance warning that “if you do ‘X’, then I will do ‘Y’.” It also may be needed so that those watching realize that the severe option also was your last option. But even in these situations, the threat (such as to another country’s leader) often results in a reaction that is the adult or national equivalent of “nanny, nanny, boo, boo…”

If you must threaten, make sure that the threat can be carried out successfully. If not, the next threat you make make be answered not with anger, but derision. The better approach is to set out the facts as you see them and let your subordinate or opponent come to see the threat on their own.

For example, rather than telling a sales team, “Every one increase sales by 20% this quarter or I’ll fire you,” try explaining that you have $1 million less in revenue than expenses and hope you can count on the sales team to help the workforce survive these challenging times. Set a date on everyone’s calendar three months from then to jointly review the sales results.

Rather than threatening an opponent with litigation that you say will embarrass them for their evil deeds, consider suggesting to them you would like to explore options for reaching an agreed resolution that would avoid the headaches of litigation for all involved. Just today, I observed someone attempt to persuade a group to change course by telling them that they would become irrelevant if they did not, adding that some of their concerns were absurd. The reaction was not a change of mind but anger over the perceived presumptiveness.

Just as you can draw more flies with honey than vinegar, facts may persuade, but threats almost never do. If someone is pointing a gun at you and telling you to hand over your money, you may comply. The boss that leaves employees feeling they had a gun pointed at them, on the other hand, will leave those employees looking for excuses to undermine her for the other 39 hours and fifty-five minutes of that week.

The fundamental rule is this: what doesn’t work to persuade you, probably doesn’t persuade others either.

Heroes, conspiracy theories, and biscuits

October 13, 2013July 22, 2017 by BREAKING, posted in Uncategorized

In a time when political gamesmanship rules the day, it’s refreshing to know that heroes still walk among us. Take a Secret Service agent I will refer to as “B.” When I last saw B, I had stopped momentarily by his traffic booth in front of the White House to let him know his recommendation a few days earlier for nearby breakfast biscuits (WTF—Woodward Takeout Food) had made my morning. He patted his stomach and assured me he knew his biscuits.

He promptly returned to the tasks at hand, checking a truck that was seeking entrance to the White House. As I walked on to my next meeting, his unassuming yet professional, firm but good-natured, manner left me feeling the security of those around me was being well served.

Moving forward 11 weeks, the government had shut down. Pay was being cut off to his household, but as an employee deemed “essential” he was expected to report to work, paycheck or not. And on Oct. 3, he was at his duty station, still carefully stopping traffic seeking to enter the White House. Suddenly a vehicle crashed into the security checkpoint. Without drawing his gun or using other force, B motioned the driver to stop.

The driver aimed the car at him and gunned the engine, crashing into B, knocking him in the air, rolling him over the hood and windshield, then finally on to the pavement, where his head was narrowly missed by her tires. The driver fled the White House area and headed toward the Capitol at a high speed, putting pedestrians in danger and breaching another security zone. The driver rammed a Secret Service vehicle at the Capitol and ignored the handful of \officers with drawn weapons who attempted to stop the car.

The driver backed up, nearly hitting Capitol Police officers, and sped away, resulting in officers opening fire. Encountering another barrier, the driver ran into a guard house not far from the Supreme Court. During the chase, a Capitol Police officer was reported injured when his car struck a barricade. Eventually more shots were fired by the police and the driver was killed.

Police then learned the driver had her 1-year-old with her — thankfully unharmed. Though it was certainly capable of killing, her car turned out to have been her only weapon. We now know the driver had a history of mental illness.

Critics have questioned whether excessive force was used by the officers who fired at the driver. Had the driver been in a car packed with explosives that was run past barriers into tourist-filled areas, causing countless deaths, you can be sure the same critics would have demanded to know why the same officers did not do more to stop the car.

Being second-guessed at everything you do and having the worst of motives attributed to you is often the price of public service anywhere; this is truer than ever in Washington these days. Moreover, never slowed by facts, conspiracy theorists prove themselves to be nature’s most reliable source of endless renewable energy. Every tragedy is another chance to prove a plot.

In this tragedy, the driver’s actions sent B to the hospital and left the rest of us very grateful he was alive. B’s response was not anger at the woman but a wish he had been able to do something to help her when they encountered each other. We all would wish society could have helped keep the driver from reaching the point that her mental issues would cause her to drive in a manner that led law enforcement to believe she was the sort of threat people like B are trained to stop. The driver’s willingness to subject her child to such dangers reflected her desperate mental state.

In a week he was working without pay, B to his great detriment risked his own safety in an attempt to resolve the situation without force, coming close to laying down his life for others. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill gave a standing ovation to the law enforcement response to the incident. But they apparently were not moved enough to ensure B and the Capitol Police officer who suffered injuries would get their paychecks before the shutdown ends.

Physical condition permitting, you can be sure both officers will plan to be back at their jobs, paychecks or not, protecting those they serve without regard to the insanity that so often goes on around them.

Many these days enjoy vilifying federal employees. Those like B would assure us they are not heroes, but then that is the sort of thing a real hero would say. Including one who knows his biscuits.

There is no disputing the incident was a true tragedy. But perhaps we can suspend for a day the second-guessing and conspiracy theories that are their own breed of mental illness. Instead, let’s pause to thank our heroes.