Invantage Advising

Category: Politics

  • A Scorecard for Assessing Fundamental Attributes and Capacities of a Strategic Leader

    A Scorecard for Assessing Fundamental Attributes and Capacities of a Strategic Leader

    Five Criteria for Judging a Leader’s Fundamental Capacity to Carry out his Responsibilities and Duties

    1. Trust,
    2. Judgment/Critical Thinking,
    3. Discipline and Self-Control
    4. Self-Awareness
    5. Empathy 

    How do we recognize a person who can be entrusted with the fate of a nation, a corporation, a university or any enterprise where actions and decisions have critical impact?  There are  five critical fundamental capacities a leader in a position of great responsibility must have: trust, judgment, discipline, self-awareness and empathy. Together they constitute a model of an emotionally  mature adult with the necessary temperament and cognitive capacity to allow him or her to function at the highest level required of someone who has enormous responsibility.

    Great leadership  certainly requires additional qualities and capabilities–vision, daring, the capacity to inspire, discernment, creativity and so on.  But first, a leader must demonstrate the fundamentals enumerated in this checklist. Without them he or she cannot carry out the duties required of someone in a position of high office.

    This model of the fundamentals required of a leader is based on the principles of mature, high level mental functioning developed in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis over the last 100 years. I discovered that the Army Field Manual Leader Development fm6_22 follows the same path and arrives at the same destination.  The scorecard I’ve developed is distilled  from that Army Manual. It’s virtue is that it does not require specialized knowledge such as a background in Psychiatric evaluation.  It allows a leader’s mental capacity to lead to be determined by any reasonably observant and thoughtful person using common sense.  The scorecard can also be used by leaders to assess their own strengths and weaknesses and plan a program for improvement of their personal leadership capacity.  In fact, one of the Army Field Manual’s prime missions is to assist leaders in developing their leadership abilities.

    An earlier and somewhat briefer version of this scorecard was published as an Op-Ed in the LA Times on June 16, 2017 “Is Trump mentally fit to be President?  Let’s consult the Army’s field manual on leadership” 

    *Trust. According to the Army, trust is fundamental to the functioning of a team or alliance in any setting: “Leaders shape the ethical climate of their organization while developing the trust and relationships that enable proper leadership.” A leader who is deficient in the capacity for trust makes little effort to support others, may be isolated and aloof, may be apathetic about discrimination, allows distrustful behaviors to persist among team members, makes unrealistic promises and focuses on self-promotion.

    As a psychiatrist I’ve observed that an individual lacking in trust habitually blames others when problems arise, avoids taking responsibility and consistently feels beleaguered and unfairly treated.

    *Discipline and self-control. The manual requires that a leader demonstrate control over his behavior and align his behavior with core Army values: “Loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage.” The disciplined leader does not have emotional outbursts or act impulsively, and he maintains composure in stressful or adverse situations. Without discipline and self-control, a leader may not be able to resist temptation, to stay focused despite distractions, to avoid impulsive action or to think before jumping to a conclusion. The leader who fails to demonstrate discipline reacts “viscerally or angrily when receiving bad news or conflicting information,” and he “allows personal emotions to drive decisions or guide responses to emotionally charged situations.”

    Discipline means having the ability to forego an immediate reward for a later, greater outcome.

    In psychiatry, we talk about “filters” — neurologic braking systems that enable us to appropriately inhibit our speech and actions even when disturbing thoughts or powerful emotions are present. Discipline and self-control require that an individual has a robust working filter, so that he doesn’t say or do everything that comes to mind.

    *Judgment and critical thinking. Judgment and critical thinking are complex, high-level mental functions that include the abilities to discriminate, assess, plan, decide, anticipate, prioritize and compare. A leader with the capacity for critical thinking “seeks to obtain the most thorough and accurate understanding possible,” and he anticipates “first, second and third consequences of multiple courses of action.” A leader deficient in judgment and strategic thinking demonstrates rigid and inflexible thinking. His thinking is not innovative

    The ability to think critically and strategically is a necessary precondition for good judgment. “Sound judgment is dependent on the ability to organize thoughts logically, to plan ahead, to understand cause and effect and most importantly to anticipate the consequences of an action,” according to the Army manual.

    Problem solving is dependent on thinking and judgment, so these capacities can be evaluated by observing how the leader responds to a crisis. Most importantly, can he considers the long-term consequences of his actions.

    Because it is absolutely fundamental to effective leadership, the AFM expands at length on the specifics involved in critical and strategic thinking. This leadership capacity involves actively seeing different points of view, considering alternative explanations and looking at the big picture. Thinking, speech and ideas should be deliberate and well-organized. Assessments should include looking for gaps in information and seeking to have them filled, while looking for inconsistencies. The leader “keeps reasoning separate from self-esteem”. Planning is careful, thoughtful and based on complete information and the synthesis of the divergent views and alternative explanations which should be actively sought. Priorities are clear and well thought out.

    Helpfully, the AFM gives a vivid description of the behaviors of a leader deficient in judgment and strategic thinking. That leader fails to consider alternative explanations or courses of action. He fails to consider second and third consequences of an action. He oversimplifies, cannot distinguish the critical elements in a given situation and is unable to handle multiple lines of thought simultaneously. He Is hasty in prioritization and planning. He cannot or does not “articulate the evidence and thought process leading to decisions”.

    *Self-awareness. Self-awareness requires the capacity to reflect and an interest in doing so. “Self-aware leaders know themselves, including their traits, feelings, and behaviors,” the manual says. “They employ self-understanding and recognize their effect on others.” When a leader lacks self-awareness, the manual notes, he “unfairly blames subordinates when failures are experienced” and “rejects or lacks interest in feedback.”

    Self-awareness creates a desire to understand: motives, how feelings are affecting judgment, how one is impacting others, how one is viewed by others. The AFM describes the necessity of the capacity for “metacognition” which is the ability to think about thinking, to observe and regulate one’s thoughts.

    This capacity enables a leader to put the following essential functions into effect in all his decision making: Actively consider what he knows and doesn’t know; maintain awareness of his thinking process and its strengths and weaknesses; be alert to his emotions and their impact on his thinking; act tactfully; make accurate assessments of social cues; and listen to and let the views and feelings of others have an impact on him.

    *Empathy. Perhaps surprisingly, the field manual repeatedly stresses the importance of empathy as an essential attribute for Army leadership.

    A good leader “demonstrates an understanding of another person’s point of view” and “identifies with others’ feelings and emotions.” The manual’s description of inadequacy in this area: “Shows a lack of concern for others’ emotional distress,” is indifferent to their pain and “displays an inability to take another’s perspective.”

    Empathy is required for an effective leader because it is this capacity that allows him to accurately understand another person’s intent and to be able to foresee the impact of his actions on others. The Army guide states that the empathic leader can be identified because he is respectful of others, cares about subordinates and creates a positive work environment. A person who is deficient in this capacity He focuses solely on his own needs without considering those of others. He de-humanizes the enemy.

    As a psychiatrist, I’ll add another dimension to empathy. It’s not enough to understand how another person feels – the best dictators are adept at sensing other people’s’ vulnerabilities and exploiting them. A leader also must care about the impact of his words and actions on others. The AFM description of inadequacy in this dimension: “Exhibits resistance or limited perspective on the needs of others. Words and actions communicate a lack of understanding or indifference.”

     

     

    June 26, 2017
    Copyright Prudence Gourguechon 2017

  • A New Tool for Evaluating the Highest Level of Leadership–Inspired by Donald Trump

    A New Tool for Evaluating the Highest Level of Leadership–Inspired by Donald Trump

    The 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution allows for the removal of the President by the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet if they determine that he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of his high office.  That phrase captured me.  How would the Vice President and the Cabinet determine ability or inability to discharge the duties of the Presidency whether the President is Donald Trump or anyone else?  The Constitution says no more than that brief phrase.  I set out to operationalize it, so that leaders and citizens could make a fair and objective determination of this President’s, or any other’s, ability to discharge his duties.  In the process, I developed a tool that could be useful beyond politics, to assess the core capacities for leadership of anyone being considered for a position of high responsibility.  Pathology isn’t the issue here.  It’s actually easier (and not that useful) to diagnose mental disorders and pathological traits.  But how do we codify mental strength, that is capacity and ability?

    “Duties of his office”–A listing of what the president does every day –meet foreign leaders, make announcements, sign laws, clearly wouldn’t be helpful.  Nor would generalizations such as set policy, promote his agenda, uphold the Constitution. I felt that specifying the qualities and defining attributes of the duties of the Presidency is the key to making the 25th Amendment usable. The duties of the President are those of someone with the  highest level of responsibility, whose every decision and action has critical impact and enormous consequences.

    “Unable to discharge” —The key word here is “unable”, which led me to search for a way to operationalize assessment of ability or inability.  I started the process of creating a tool for assessing ability or inability by reviewing the literature on executive functioning in psychology and ego functioning in psychoanalysis.  Both of these fields of thought define a wide range of capacities that are necessary for the highest level of cognitive, emotional and social functioning.  In my research, I stumbled upon a document that pulls it all together, the Army Field Manual on Leader Development 6-22.  This is a dense document which is quite extraordinary and based on sound psychological research and practice.  I distilled 5 traits from the field manual, added some analysis from my own background as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and came up with  an evaluation tool that could serve as a guide for the evaluation of anyone aspiring to a position of the highest leadership and responsibility.

    Here’s a concise version of the tool, published in the LA Times, June 16, 2017: Is Trump mentally fit to be president_ Let’s consult the U.S Army’s field manual on leadership.

  • A Greek Tragedy: Listening Psychoanalytically to James Comey and Answering Two Agonizing Questions

    A Greek Tragedy: Listening Psychoanalytically to James Comey and Answering Two Agonizing Questions

     

    I was struck by the morality play that unfolded in James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, 2017.  Commentators focussed on the stunning depiction of Trump, by Comey, as the sort of person who couldn’t be trusted not to lie.  And his direct accusation of Trump of lying about his reasons for firing Comey, and defaming both the director and the Agency.  Trump, predictably called Comey a liar, and accused him of perjury.  He also celebrated what he saw as vindication from Comey of any wrong doing–that was not at all the case. 

    Listening to Comey, he struck me as a man who had grappled deeply with moral dilemmas, and had the courage to own the dire consequences of his decisions.  

     

     

    This is a blog post I wrote today for Huffington Post:

    source: time.com 6/8/17

    The manifest surface of James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence committee on June 8 was riveting and fascinating in itself—for example his describing immediate distrust of the President on January 6 as the kind of person who could be expected to lie. Comey revealed himself to be human, flawed, vulnerable, introspective and profoundly ethical.

    Listening just a bit beneath the surface, I found answers to two questions that have been plaguing me. I left the riveting viewing session with some sadness about what I’d learned but considerably greater peace of mind.
    First, why did Comey chose to speak out on October 28 about the new emails discovered on Anthony Weiner’s laptop in the Hillary Clinton case, breaking with the tradition of avoiding whenever possible interfering in an election? No previous explanation that I’ve heard from Comey or thrown around by commentators has satisfied me—certainly not the speculation that he as a Republican wanted Trump to win. I never felt that was his motivation.
    Second, why did Comey repeatedly reassure President Trump that he was not personally under investigation, when clearly so much is yet to be investigated and understood about the Trump campaign and Russia ties, Trump family business issues, emoluments, etc. etc. This just didn’t meet my common sense bar, and it didn’t seem legally essential for him to offer these reassurances to Trump.
    The answers to both questions were revealed yesterday, and they clearly lie in Comey’s bone deep allegiance to the mission and core values of the FBI. I wish he had done neither of things. I share the view of many that his October 28 statement had a significant negative effect, if not a defining impact, on the election outcome. He himself said in previous testimony (May 3, 2017) that “It makes me ‘mildly nauseous’ to think I may have affected election.”
    Nevertheless, both under angry questioning by Senator Feinstein on May 3, and again on June 8, Comey insisted he would not, even in retrospect, change his decision. Why not? It never made sense.
    I also share the impression of many that there are so many unanswered questions about Trump and Russia as well as other aspects of Trump’s behavior that it seemed just plain weird to repeatedly reassure the President that he wasn’t being personally investigated. We know, of course, that the precise Comey meant “at this moment at which I am saying this”. But we also know that Comey’s reassurance is being used enthusiastically by Trump and his team (either cunningly or naively) as a thoroughgoing exoneration of any wrongdoing, seemingly now and forever.

    Clinton Email Decision

    Here’s a chunk of the dialogue on June 8 between Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Burr and Comey about the fateful decision to write a letter (which Comey should have known would be immediately leaked) to Congress on October 28 about the newly discovered Anthony Weiner emails

    BURR: Director Comey, you have been criticized publicly for the decision to present your findings on the e-mail investigation directly to the American people. Have you learned anything since that time that would’ve changed what you said, or how you chose to inform the American people?

    COMEY: Honestly, no. I mean, it caused a whole lot of personal pain for me, but, as I look back, given what I knew at the time and even what I’ve learned since, I think it was the best way to try and protect the justice institution, including the FBI.

    BURR: Let me go back, if I can, very briefly, to the decision to publicly go out with your results on the e-mail.

    Was your decision influenced by the attorney general’s tarmac meeting with the former president, Bill Clinton?

    COMEY: Yes. In — in an ultimately conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me, that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department.

    BURR: Were there other things that contributed to that that you can describe in an open session?

    COMEY: …Probably the only other consideration that I guess I can talk about in an open setting is, at one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me.

    Bill Clinton’s tarmac meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Attorney General Lynch’s request that he call the Clinton email thing a “matter” instead of an “investigation”.
    Comey’s motivation is clearly to protect the independence of the “justice institution”, the FBI. He had to “protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department.” The independence, credibility and integrity of the FBI are the paramount guiding values that led to his decision.
    Sadly, it was just those values that were questioned by progressives after his October 28 action. Instead of understanding he had to make what for him was an agonizing decision to protect the integrity of the FBI, many of us on the left thought that his action cast a shadow of partisanship over the FBI. Speaking out before the election about Clinton and not Trump made it look to Clinton supporters like the FBI was NOT independent. I think we were dead wrong, at least as far as his motivation was concerned. For Comey, not speaking out, or “concealing” as he called it, would have been betraying the agency’s core values. It speaks to me of a Greek tragedy, where a hero’s greatest strength leads inevitably to his destruction.

    Why Reassure Trump He Wasn’t Under Investigation?

    Presumably, Comey could have guessed that Trump and his allies would take this as a vindication and exoneration, now and forever. I for one didn’t believe Trump, not known as a truth teller, when he said in the Lester Holt interview (NBC News, May 11, 2017) that Comey had assured him 3 times that he wasn’t under investigation.

    HOLT: Let me ask you about your termination letter to Mr. Comey. You write, “I greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that I am not under investigation.”  Why did you put that in there?

    TRUMP: Because he told me that. I mean, he told me that.

    HOLT: He told you, you weren’t under investigation with…

    TRUMP: Yeah, and I…

    HOLT: …regard to the Russian investigation.

    I was startled to hear Trump’s claim confirmed by Director Comey yesterday. Why would he do that? Comey gives a very interesting window into his thinking with this answer:

    “I was speaking to him, and briefing him about some salacious and unverified material. It was in the context of that that he had a strong and defensive reaction about that not being true. And my reading of it was it was important for me to assure him we were not personally investigating him. And so the context then was actually narrower, focused on what I had just talked to him about.

    It was very important because it was, first, true. And second, I was worried very much about being in kind of a — kind of a J. Edgar Hoover-type situation. I didn’t want him thinking that I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way. I was briefing him on it because we were — had been told by the media it was about to launch. We didn’t want to be keeping that from him. And if there was some — he needed to know this was being said. But I was very keen not to leave him with an impression that the bureau was trying to do something to him. And so that’s the context in which I said, “Sir, we’re not personally investigating you.”

    I’m old enough to get the J Edgar Hoover reference, and to have a visceral response and understanding. One of the formative and cautionary stories my mother told me in my childhood was about a couple of FBI agents coming to her door during the McCarthy Era and asking if her friend Myrtle was a member of the Communist Party. (My mother proudly but with obvious lingering terror refused to answer). I know what the FBI meant in the public mind in the 1950’s and 1960’s—an agency that would collect dirt on everyone it could and use it to threaten, blackmail or manipulate them when it suited director Hoover. Comey, as a deep believer in the integrity of the agency, didn’t want to have Trump get the impression that his FBI, Comey’s agency, was anything like the J Edgar FBI. He wanted Trump to know that today’s FBI would not use the salacious file to influence or manipulate Trump. I can’t know, but I suspect Trump missed the nuances of this reassurance altogether as well as its narrow “right now/counterintelligence” focus and took it, as he has affirmed in so many tweets, as proof that he has never done anything wrong with respect to Russia or anything else.
    So the answers to the two troubling questions come down to Comey’s pride in and allegiance to the values of the FBI. Its motto is Fidelity-Bravery-Integrity.
    The FBI’s stated core values are
    • Rigorous obedience to the Constitution of the United States;
    • Respect for the dignity of all those we protect;
    • Compassion;
    • Fairness;
    • Uncompromising personal integrity and institutional integrity;
    • Accountability by accepting responsibility for our actions and decisions and the consequences of our actions and decisions;
    • Leadership, both personal and professional; and
    • Diversity.
    As much as I hate and mourn the political impact of his decisions, if I were James Comey, I believe I would have made the same decisions. I find myself admiring him as a great man whose integrity and profound sense of ethics helped lead us to a very dark time but who will also help bring us back to a time of national integrity, bravery and fidelity to our core national values.
    Reference
    https://www.fbi.gov/about/mission
    Click here to read the piece on 

     

  • Trump’s Big Daddy Lie

    Trump’s Big Daddy Lie

    I published this in Huffington Post, September 19, 2016. Like my earlier post on Hillary Clinton, “Everybody’s Mother” it address the importance of understanding unconscious processes in voters.  Voting choices, like all other decisions people make, are deeply effected by emotions and unconscious narratives and fantasies.  Messaging that takes unconscious but ubiquitous hidden psychological processes into account can outsmart resistances and have a much stronger impact. You can read the blog post here on Huffington.

    ***

    Rational Arguments can’t win this bizarre presidential campaign but emotion-stoked messages that speak directly to the unconscious can

    Do you remember when you were a child and a cataclysmic thunder storm lit up your back yard? You were terrified that lightening would strike your house. And your Dad said, “No it won’t. There’s a one in a million chance of that. We’re totally safe. I promise.” You probably sought and received similar reassurances about plane crashes, child abductions, large bears and murderers. “I promise, you’re safe.” This is The Big Daddy Lie. (And please forgive me, I know in some families it’s the Mom, or the Grandmother issuing the Big Daddy Lie. I’m talking about a role and a function here).

    The Big Daddy Lie is psychologically essential. As children we need to believe there is a powerful grown up who knows more than us. We need him to tell he knows reality better than our fearful minds do and that he’ll keep us safe. We need this omnipotent, omniscient father even when we suspect he’s not telling the truth. And we carry that dependence into adulthood, reassuring ourselves, “Well, yes, planes crash, but I promise, not this one I’m getting on.” It’s not true, we don’t know that, but we have to let ourselves believe the lie, or we couldn’t go anywhere. Without the Big Daddy Lie in childhood and in its integrated version in our adult minds, we’d be too paralyzed by fear to do anything.

    I’m convinced that The Big Daddy Lie is a big part of Donald Trump’s current (and terrifying) rise in the polls. I wish my Dad were around to tell me we were safe.

    Habituation to Trump’s bad behavior (fairly widely discussed as “normalization”) paves the way for a new emotional response to him, a positive tilt towards the comforting Big Daddy Lie. Trump harnesses the power of the Big Daddy Lie masterfully, and the anxious child lurking within everyone basically laps it up.

    I’m not saying voters are children. But emotions powerfully effect voter decision making (see Drew Westen’s The Political Brain). And childhood emotional experiences are dormant and revivable—they become unconscious narratives or experiential templates that stay with us and are aroused in times of stress or fear. Or when they are skillfully manipulated. This in part explains the rise and popularity of strongmen everywhere. The rational observer sees the destruction they will wreck upon their people. The child inside all of us can be drawn into the illusion of safety that the Big Daddy promises to provide. He will take care of us.

    Over and over from Donald Trump, like a drumbeat: “I’ll fix it, I promise”. “That’s not going to happen when I become President.” “The pipes [in Flint] will be changed. It will be done right. It will be done quickly. I know how to do it.” “I’ll fix the inner city” (ok, the Big Daddy Lie from Trump didn’t work so well that time). “Those terrorists, they won’t get to you when I’m president. Okay? Okay?” Notice that sometimes his voice drops to a soothing murmur. “Okay? I promise. Okay? I promise.” He implies, and sometimes says, and “Only I can do it.”

    It’s painful, but understandable that Trump will appeal to 35-40% of the electorate. We know this from studies on authoritarian personality. (see Amanda Taub in Vox

    But how to account for the 10-15% rise bringing him neck and neck with Clinton? I’m suggesting the operation of a psychological one-two punch—(1) the widely discussed (by Democrats anyway) “normalization of his bad behavior” (2) leads to conditions in which the Big Daddy Lie can exert a powerful appear. Luckily, I think there are a couple of ways to counteract its influence.

    The Normalization of Bad Behavior
    There’s solid psychology behind the normalization-of-bad-behavior phenomenon. In other words, it was predictable. People can get used to anything if they are exposed to it long enough. We’re so used to Trump saying things that are patently, outlandishly false, like claiming that Clinton doesn’t have a child care program, or wildly inappropriate, like calling a US Senator “Pocahontas.” So when we hear a new lie or an old insult, nothing gets stirred up inside us except a sense of resignation. The psychological explanation behind this normalization phenomenon is pretty simple: the familiar outrageous fails to evoke a strong emotional response in the listener. This is a normal, self-protective psychological defense mechanism. No one can function when continuously aroused to a state of fear, shock or outrage. But in this Presidential campaign, it’s frighteningly dangerous.

    Repeatedly exposed to Trump’s objectively ridiculous, outrageous or even, yes, deplorable speech and actions, our emotional activating systems are desensitized and habituated. Our alerting systems take a snooze. Emotional sensors don’t flood our bodies with stress hormones. That feeling of being punched in the guts? Doesn’t happen. We all join the chorus of “That’s just Trump” as Mike Pence once put it in his genial manner.

    What can be done?
    Raise a passionate ruckus. The desensitization to bad behavior can be overcome by making a louder emotional noise, to break through the numbing and cut straight through to the voter’s emotional brains. A number of Hillary’s advertisements, like the one showing military families who have clearly made enormous sacrifices watching, incredulously, as Trump claims he too made sacrifices by building “structures,” powerfully connect to the voter’s emotions. Videos from groups like Correct the Record’s The Trump Project, skillfully use razor sharp editing to over-ride numbed emotional reactions. Our limbic systems are no longer going to react when Trump calls Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas”, though we should by rights be flooded with outrage and fear. But a collage of clips of him repeatedly calling people names still can slice through the desensitization.

    Elizabeth Warren herself is a master of emotional power—listen to one of her speeches, dripping brilliantly with articulately expressed outrage, and suddenly the numbness evaporates. I’d like to see Bernie Sanders out there every day, breaking through the numbness, because his rhetoric also arouses passion in his followers.

    But the best way to combat the Big Daddy Lie is for Mrs. Clinton to offer something just as powerful— messaging that similarly speaks to and reassures the anxious child that lives within every voter. She needs to use emotionally evocative language that targets buried memories of and longing for a powerful, protective mother who takes care of us and keeps us from harm. I’ve written elsewhere about the pitfalls for women in positions of power. But the image of a powerful, protective female force is also there to be harnessed. In a speech in the 2008 primaries, Clinton met the challenge magnificently and provided an image of distinctly female power that could not help but exert a tremendous positive appeal. The speech developed a riff on the Emma Lazarus poem about Lady Liberty, Clinton offering herself symbolically as a version of that much larger than life figure, a steady, welcoming, embracing, protective powerful female presence. Take that Big Daddy.

  • Everybody’s Mother: What Hillary Clinton and Other Women in Power Need to Know About the Unconscious

    Everybody’s Mother: What Hillary Clinton and Other Women in Power Need to Know About the Unconscious

    I published this essay in Huffington Post last February.  I think it is still relevant in September 2016–maybe more so than ever.  A companion piece is Trump’s Big Daddy Lie.  Both posts refer to the unconscious processes that effect  a politician’s popularity and how these can be overcome or positively deployed.

    ***

    That pesky mother issue keeps cropping up in our collective political life—and will always dog Hillary Clinton’s heels, as well as those of any woman who dares to seek a position of political power. Doesn’t it seem that Hillary Clinton can’t catch a break? Years ago she got in trouble for saying she was going to work and not stay home and bake cookies (too tough). Then she gets in trouble for tolerating Bill’s behavior—shouldn’t she have thrown him out on his ear (not tough enough)? Her interest in children’s welfare was seen, some years ago, as not sufficiently weighty (not tough enough). Now she is considered too much a part of the (male-ish) power establishment (too tough).

    You can’t understand why Hillary Clinton always seems to be, well, dissatisfying to many voters without understanding a fundamental psychoanalytic concept-a phenomenon called transference, and particularly the biggie, the mother transference.

    I’ve been watching Hillary for years, and she is always accused of one of two sins—being too strong or not strong enough. This happens to all women leaders. The more power you have, the more visible you are, the higher the pitch of criticism. Understanding how the mother transference works in politics can provide lessons for the Clinton campaign and generations of women leaders to come.

    Transference refers to very strong feelings, hopes, fantasies and fears we have in relation to the important adults of our childhood that carry forward, unconsciously, into present day relationships.

    Doctors, professors, lawyers, clergy and politicians – male and female – are the recipients of strong transferences.

    Female teachers, caretakers and leaders are likely targets for what we call “mother transferences.”

    At the point where power politics and the psychic world of transference intersect, men have a distinct advantage. We like idealizing a powerful man and fantasize that by attaching our fates to his, we are somehow safer, wiser and more powerful ourselves.

    Communicating a positive, evocative image about leadership and power is far more complicated when it comes to women leaders. Here’s one reason why: the most profound experience of power any of us have in our lives is the infinitely powerful mother of early childhood. The dirty secret in our psyches is that if you dig deep enough you discover a hidden feeling that women are actually not soft, nurturing and emotional, but all-powerful and not so nice.

    The universal “omnipotent mother” of early childhood had power and control over every aspect of our lives: whether or not our needs are met, whether our communications are understood, whether our development is supported or thwarted.

    As a result, we humans are deeply ambivalent towards women in power. A powerful woman tends not to exert an automatic pull of attraction like a powerful man, but rather wariness at best or even repulsion.

    We are reluctant to move toward a powerful woman who reminds us of the negative side of a mother experienced as nagging, restricting, shaming or controlling.

    Even without personally exhibiting these traits, a woman in power is at risk of being repellant merely by her power itself evoking these negative expectations.

    Back in 2008, during the Ohio primary campaign, Hillary said, in one of her speeches, “Shame on you, Barack Obama,” It didn’t come across as tough and assertive. Instead, she elicited echoes of the shaming, mocking parent we may have had, or feared having. You can’t win adherents by reminding them of their mother’s ability to make them feel bad. No one is going to feel attracted to the maternal figure in active shaming, criticizing mode.

    Here’s another problem a woman candidate for high office faces—some images of power that evoke strong positive associations when it comes to a male leader just don’t work so well for a woman.

    Everyone loves a fighter, right? Especially if they’re fighting for me? A powerful man is going to fight for us — that carries promise and excites loyalty. A powerful woman fighting for us is an image that simply doesn’t resonate. Our hearts just don’t thrum to the image of a woman fighting. It’s not fair. It’s sexist. But it is true.

    “Fighting For Us” is one of the Clinton campaign’s key slogans. “I will stand up and fight for you. I will get up every single day and keep fighting for the kind of America we want,” Clinton said during the Iowa campaign. And after the New Hampshire defeat, she posted on Twitter: “It’s not whether you get knocked down that matters, it’s whether you get back up.”

    I think Hillary the Fighter leaves people cold—or a little out of sorts. Because she’s a woman. As I said it’s not fair.

    What messages would work better? In addition to avoiding negative echoes of a nagging or controlling mother, Clinton and her campaign have to search for positive images of female power that don’t carry that frisson of unease that a Female Fighter does.

    I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll make sure you have what you need. I’ll look out for you when no one else does. The mother bear, the mother lion. These themes and images evoke a positive feeling and no dissonance.

    Speaking in Flint on February 7, Clinton said, “Do not grow weary doing good. Do not get discouraged. Do not give up”. And speaking about his wife on February 1, Bill Clinton said, “She always makes good things happen.” Wow. These messages work. Support, encouragement, belief in us, inspiration, making good things happen. That’s female power at its best.

    At other times in her career, Mrs. Clinton has demonstrated a remarkable power to evoke images of positive female power. Her book It Takes a Village is one example. What does that title convey, psychologically? We women take care of our people; we will protect and nurture you so you can live a good life.

    Another image she deployed in 2008 magnificently captured positive and distinctly female power. In a speech on the night of the Super Tuesday primaries, she evoked the image of the Statue of Liberty, quoting Emma Lazarus’ poem, and then inviting the people to come to her with their problems and needs. It was perfect. She nailed the transference problem. She found a way to be both a powerful woman and infinitely appealing.

    Lady Liberty is the perfect image for an enormously strong and powerful woman that is at the same time positively maternal and nurturing.

    Fair or not, women in leadership have to be particularly smart in understanding and managing the transferences that will inevitably come their way.

    Women with power must be careful to avoid evoking in the voter (or their subordinates in a company) the buried experience of the nagging, shaming, disappointed and entitled mother.

    They must look for images like the Statue of Liberty or the village of women that protects and nurtures, evoking positive and distinctly female power. These images and themes will touch the voters in a way only a woman can.