Opinion: Charisma alone can't cut it in running our city
HOWARD TULLMAN
Paul Vallas, left, and Brandon Johnson
Chicago’s mayoral contest presents just the latest opportunity to understand how easy it is for the public to confuse even a modest dollop of “charisma” with the kind of character and substance it takes to actually be in charge of and successfully understand and operate any substantial enterprise.
The painful and costly risk of foolishly choosing the wrong leader is no less frightening to the city than it has been to countless new and long-standing businesses in the past.
We’re watching a heated competition in Chicago between two candidates: Paul Vallas, a bland but serious candidate with boatloads of relevant and compelling experience who — much like President Joe Biden — offers a vision of competence, control and stability and who speaks in facts and figures.
And Brandon Johnson, a rank but highly vocal beginner with no business experience, training or skills, who’s trying to sell the same-old story of dramatic and rapid change which is all sputter and racially tinted sound bites rather than any actual substance or real plans or programs. When you don’t have the facts, the experience or the skill to sell, the worst pretenders fall back on sleazy claims, racist provocations and personal attacks to help sell their smoke-and-mirror solutions.
Sadly, the media, always looking for “new” and emerging saviors along with cheap sizzle, are celebrating the pretender’s “charisma” and ignoring his utter lack of qualifications or capacity to actually do the job. Calling these charlatans “charismatic” is like admiring Ronald McDonald’s fashion sense.
The most observant professionals in the city continue to try to remind the voters that this is not a popularity contest for head cheerleader (although the current mayor is probably the worst ever at that part of the job) or for band president. It’s supposed to be a serious and thoughtful evaluation of whether each candidate is up to the task of running a $28 billion budget and operating one of the largest and most complex cities in the world. It’s not a job for even the most excited amateurs who haven’t got a clue about what it really entails.
And, in a clear sign of how empty and manipulative this current effort really is, well-known hyper-progressive politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who clearly know nothing about Johnson or about what’s actually happening in Chicago, are rushing to endorse the guy in gestures that are so superficial and inauthentic that they’re ultimately just insults to the voters’ intelligence.
Chicago doesn’t need the input of outsiders with their own credibility problems who are mainly interested in stirring the pot and pushing people’s buttons without offering anything in the way of actual programs, process improvements or concrete suggestions.
The last thing we need in our businesses and for the leadership of our cities and country right now are new, untested and inexperienced change agents trying to interest a tired, concerned and fearful population of consumers, clients and voters in the idea of change for change’s sake and pushing us all to charge forward into uncertain and perilous times with no plan or strategy and no likelihood of success.
Chicago has suffered mightily through four years of an incompetent, angry and utterly inexperienced mayor who was promoted much in the same fashion as the latest newbie is being “sold” and who ended up destroying large parts of the city’s economy as well as its global reputation as a safe, smart and successful place to work and live.
It’s the wrong time and far too dangerous a period for a progressive novice to try to learn this big and challenging job on the fly while our entire city is in crisis mode.
Howard Tullman is the former CEO of 1871 in Chicago, former executive director of the Kaplan Institute at Illinois Tech, and past president of Kendall College and Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy.
