Picking Politicians

Watching Bill Bradley and Al Gore on “Meet The Press” recently, skirmishing like a couple of alley cats, was amusing, yet disturbing. Instead of knowing more about them as potential leaders, we knew less.

The confrontation depicted the shallowness of how America selects its political leaders. Historically, we lean heavily on candidates’ vote-seeking public positions on issues while ignoring their aptitude for less visible but crucial aspects of executive decision-making and leadership manner. Which isn’t to say candidates’ stances on issues don’t divulge meaningful data. The problem is such information is limited in scope and value.

A candidate’s assessment of an issue tells something about him (we use masculine only for simplicity), but reveals precious little of his proclivity for the daily grind of actual leadership demands. A more complete picture of leadership potential emerges with knowing one’s critical thinking and problem-solving patterns, relationship-building proficiencies and behavioral tendencies — attributes that transcend issues, situations and time.

Such insight into style, as we term it, heightens voters’ grasp of a candidate’s executive mind set and foreshadows likely leadership performance.

The business way

We’ve studied business leaders’ style tendencies for years. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that top executive effectiveness depends mostly on style traits: how a leader thinks, assesses, relates, inspires, communicates and acts, irrespective of circumstances or conditions; how he handles problems; how he responds to and manages change; how he listens to expert counsel; how he works with others unlike himself; how he reacts to ideas that clash with his own; how he leads meetings, negotiates conflicts, convinces others to follow him.

The trick to glimpsing someone’s true style is getting inside his brain and soul. Exactly the challenge faced by corporate boards searching for CEOs whose leadership experience and style fit their company’s precise leadership needs. IBM, Kodak and Hewlett-Packard, among others, found their current leaders elsewhere, breaking with tradition.

Evaluating leadership style demands detective work. We suggest three methods: scrutinize prior behavior, listen critically, ask unorthodox questions.

Prior behavior

There’s no better predictor of future behavior. That’s what historians do — they study the past to understand the present to forecast the future. Examples abound. Lyndon Johnson’s arm-twisting style as Senate majority leader previewed his presidential style, despite campaign claims or media portrayal to the contrary. Regarding priorities, we had to know, based on the record and campaign rhetoric, that electing Bill Clinton would elevate education on the national agenda. And including Al Gore on the ticket would push technology and environmental issues to the forefront in a Clinton administration.

Scanning the public record for anecdotes offers revelations into a politician’s modus operandi. A recent Fortune article revealed that during Bill Bradley’s three Senate terms, he met quarterly with senior business executives to solicit their views. While lecturing at Stanford, his non-classroom regimen included coffee with Silicon Valley financial gurus. Whether these accounts paint Bradley as coalition builder, brown-noser or long-range planner is open to interpretation. But that they suggest an inclination for building advance support for future initiatives seems clear.

Similarly, Sen. John McCain’s attractiveness as a leader derives, for many, from his time as a Vietnam POW, a perception divorced from any issue. Conversely, his documented anger outbursts seem to have cooled some voters’ enthusiasm for his candidacy, again unrelated to a given issue.

Listening critically

Everything a political candidate says — and doesn’t say — communicates something about his leadership style. Sometimes, distinguishing the real leader from the political persona requires listening between the lines and beyond the words.

There was a moment during “Meet The Press” when Bill Bradley was asked how he would fund Social Security if the U.S. economy soured. Ever the diplomat, the Princeton alum said that answering a “what if” question with national implications without having all pertinent information would be inexcusably irresponsible. Then, as his political instincts kicked in, he explained that he’d collect all the facts, analyze the pros and cons, and solicit input from both parties and subject experts before deciding what was best. Some undoubtedly construed his non-response as spineless or waffling, while others saw a prudent decision-maker. Whatever your take, knowledge of how the man thinks was gained.

On the other hand, consider Al Gore’s surprise proposal that all Democratic candidates refrain from TV advertising until after the primaries. A serious overture, a gimmick to nab attention or a ploy to rattle and embarrass Bradley? Maybe what Gore didn’t say told us more than what he did say — if we listened closely.

Incisive questions

Probing political candidates’ views and character is indigenous to campaigning. However, the questions typically posed rarely penetrate candidates’ facades. Too often, questions are deflected like gnats or restated to media-savvy candidates’ advantage, denying voters access to their deeper thoughts.

Slippery, open-ended questions — e.g., “How do you see America’s role in foreign affairs?” — give candidates excessive latitude. Needed is more offbeat, imaginative querying that impel politicians to divulge snatches of their leadership ways. For example:

—If faced with a situation of the magnitude of a Cuban missile crisis, what would you do the first 24 hours?

—To seek a solution to a complex issue like race relations, with whom would you consult and what research would you conduct to formulate a strategy solution?

—In negotiating a treaty with a mistrusting competitor, like the Chinese head of state, what principles would guide you?

Questions that clarify both a candidate’s stand on issues and thinking/decision processes may not be the stuff of headlines, but they can make a difference in picking who will lead the nation.

And finally . . .

The quest to understand, and predict, leadership in politics, is, as in business, not an exact science. But by expanding the political “debate” to include candidates’ political views and snatches of their executive predilections, we may actually get the kind of leaders we thought we voted for. n

J. David Pincus, Ph.D, APR, is former director of the University of Arkansas MBA program and lead author of “Top Dog,” a critically acclaimed book on chief executive officers’ changing leadership role. Stephen C. Wood, Ph.D, is chairman of the University of Rhode Island’s communication studies department and long-time scholar of presidential communication behavior.