Charisma is No Substitute for Capability
In business and in politics, the cult of personality is prevailing at a time when we desperately need leaders who can perform. And Chicago is typical.
BY HOWARD
TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH
INVESTORS@TULLMAN
In the endless stream of advice for entrepreneurs and the
catalogue of essential leadership abilities required to succeed in the startup
world, one of the most persistent and damaging myths is the vision that early
success requires a fearless and charismatic leader. One who is blessed with a
magnetic and abundant charm, along with powerful and persuasive speaking
skills.
Character, integrity, and even competence too often take a back
seat to media-friendly and easily promotable personalities, where no one's
interested in looking beneath the surface until the moment when the ship is on
the shoals and in danger of sinking. Then, and only then, do we discover that
the latest and greatest wonder has dimmed, and the so-called savior turns out
to be all sink and no plumbing. You can't build a real business on a foundation
of fiction, and you can't count on a leader who's all hat and no cattle, as
they say in the South.
It's always a bad long-term bet in business to try to get by on
a lie, or even on a well-spun story, without the slightest underlying
substance. Too often, these fairy tales and their made-up "masters of the
universe" inspire all manner of devoted and cult-like followers who are so
besotted with the facade and the phony factoids these phonies spew that they
rarely, if ever, question the underlying realities.
For many of these folks, this is as close to a religious
experience as any sales pitch by a snake oil huckster can be. Even employees
who should, and often do, know better are dragged along with the crowd and end
up behaving badly and being no less craven and criminal than the bogus
"boss." To those sycophants who claim "they didn't know,"
or that they thought they could change, control, or contain the crimes and
craziness, the truth is that the lies you tell yourself are always the worst of
all.
Charisma is very much like technology--a powerful but incomplete
tool that's only partially controllable under the best of circumstances, and
morally neutral or worse. Charisma can be employed as a positive and beneficial
skill to engage, excite, and encourage; or it can be abused by thieves and
liars to mislead, anger, and enrage.
Chicago's current mayoral contest presents just the latest
opportunity to understand how easy it is these days, especially for the media,
to confuse even a modest dollop of "charisma" with the kind of
character and substance required to actually be in charge of any substantial
enterprise. The painful and costly risk of 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 Paul
Vallas, a bland but serious candidate with boatloads of relevant and compelling
experience who-; much like President Biden-; offers a vision of competence,
control, and stability and who speaks in facts and figures; versus Brandon
Johnson, a rank but highly vocal beginner with no experience, training, or
skills, who's trying to sell the same-old story of dramatic and rapid change.
His campaign is all sputter and sound bites rather than any actual substance or
real plans and programs. Sadly, the desperate media hacks (both locally and
nationally) who are 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.
The most observant and trenchant professionals in the city
continue to try to remind the voters that this is not a popularity contest.
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 this candidate 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 voters' intelligence. Chicago certainly doesn't need the helpful
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 bottom line -- although it's not necessarily exciting or
likely to lead the nightly news -- is that 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, in particular, has suffered mightily through four years
of an incompetent 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 simply the wrong time and far too dangerous a period for
novices to try to learn these big and challenging jobs on the fly while cities
are in crisis mode.