Peter Drucker, the management guru who died last week, wrote in 1987’s “Management Lessons of Irangate” about the danger of presidents and chief executives who rely too heavily on delegation at the expense of accountability:
“A chief executive officer must delegate, otherwise he’ll end up like Gulliver in Lilliput, ineffectual and ensnared in details, as were Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. But delegation requires greater accountability and tighter control. Delegation requires clear assignment of a specific task, clear definition of the expected results and a deadline. Above all it requires that the subordinate to whom a task is delegated keep the boss fully informed.”
I think this is a serious drawback of President Bush’s management style that is coming back to bite him — he relies heavily on delegating tasks but offers little follow-up or accountability for failure. Are the objectives in Iraq, for instance, too vague and open-ended?
How good of a manager do you think Bush is?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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10 Comments
Well, let’s just look at the results, shall we?
Almost three years into Iraq and the situation is getting worse not better–more American and Iraqi lives lost everyday. Although Bush intoned that he would never commit troops “without an exit plan,” (a big gripe against Clinton’s Bosnia policy), that’s exactly what he did.
The miraculous economic boon from tax cuts have not materialized. Billions upon billions in deficit spending resulting in record high debt (as a percentage of GDP), and even THAT can’t stimulate real job growth or more than anemic GDP growth.
The rich are getting richer and the middle class are losing ground, for four years in a row.
BushCo. tried to sell us a privatized plan instead of social security, and THANK GOD FOR INFOMERCIALS, the public knew a phony-balony sales pitch when they heard one.
Gasoline, natural gas, and heating oil shot up to record highs. Electricity which is mainly generated by natural gas is soon to follow.
While BushCo. warned of the dire consequences of living without star wars missile defense (i.e., welfare for huge defense contractors) in 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists struck by highjacking jetplanes, just like Bush’s August 11th briefing said they would. Even though Osama bin Laden was going to be brought to justice “dead or alive,” he’s now just another broken promise.
But even though their policies are horrible, how about the returning “honor and dignity” to political service? Tom DeLay, resigned. Trent Lott, hammered. Cheney, Rove, Libby et al., under a cloud of suspicion for treason during wartime. Bill Frist, a “blind trust?” uh no . . . more like a slightly “nearsighted” trust. Then there’re all the Rep lobbyists and fund raisers get investigated. And what ever happened to Bush backer and close pal Ken Lay of Enron?
So, all in all, Bush has been a miserable failure.
But Halliburton and Exxon/Mobile are doing well though.
It’s worth comparing another crisis situation in American history that involved intelligence presented to a president and his response to the situation and to the hawks within his own administration clamoring for war. I’m speaking about the JFK and the Cuban missile crisis. There was undeniable evidence of WMDs in Cuba. There was the involvement of an organization (the government of the USSR) which was bent on the overthrow of the West since its inception.
Kennedy was briefed almost hourly on developments. He faced enormous pressure to use overwhelming military force from hawks in his own cabinet like Dean Rusk and from within the military establishment like chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General Maxwell Taylor. And we can’t forget General Curtis Le May of “bomb them back to the Stone Age” fame in Vietnam.
Kennedy, to his great credit, resisted the calls for war as the first and only alternative (after all war should be the LAST avenue for resolution of a diplomatic crisis) in the face of far more tangible proof of an immediate threat to the United States homeland. Nonetheless, he had prepared for war if other routes failed.
One of the great failings of US policy since that time, IMHO, has been the decline of inspired and novel thinking within government circles about how to resolve situations of great concern to US interests and national security. Because we have an unparalleled military capability it seems as though we have abandoned the art of nonmilitary resolution.
The sign of a great statesman is her/his ability to negotiate, cajole, threaten, bluff, or even con the opposition into doing the ‘proper’ thing. The comparison has been made to chess. Over the past 200 years or so there have been masters of the game…Otto von Bismark and Camillo Cavour come immediately to mind.
I will give Bush credit dor being firm and decisive, but he certainly appears to lack diplomatic tact, guile, and cunning. I’d have been curious to see how Kennedy or Bismark would have approached the Iraq situation.
Dubbya knows how to delegate. Unfortunatly it is to the wrong people, because he has never had an original thought of his own, and his delegates are all feathering their own nests at out expense.
Brian,Great post. You covered the points well. There has definetly been a lack of inventive thinking in Washington for a long time.
There is one name I would like to add to your list: Nixon.
He brokered detente and an arms truce with Russia, opened up talks with China, and eased tension between China and Russia. For all his failings, he was one of the most innovative Presidents we have had. It’s too bad he will be remembered mostly for his paranoia.
Dubya doesn’t have the cognitive skills to be a good leader or manager. His past performance in business should have tipped everyone off as to what an incompetant manager he is. He’s ridden on daddy’s coattails all his life.Good post, Brian.
He’s a great manager. Ask John Kerry.
Joe,Don’t you mean he had a great manager?
Galahad, I agree 100%. You missed one thing on JFK though. Operation Northwood, which Kennedy flatly refused to okay. And which probably helped lead to his assasination.
I never could believe that our country and leaders could do something totally reprehensible behind our backs, but after reading the Northwood document, I realized I was completely wrong.
http://emperors-clothes.com/images/north-i.htm
Bush’s problem isn’t delegation, it’s desertion. Like Reagan, he’s all spin and no substance (at least Reagan recognized that Gorbachev was for real, and negotiated a decent treaty).
Bush’s supposedly impressive performance after 9/11 fell into that category. Somehow, the right combination of Texas outrage and swift action gave people the comfort they desperately needed. But the reality of what was done after 9/11 was much grimmer.
Rather than actually protect this country, Bush and his masters chose to invent “a new kind of war,” one conveniently free of named enemies or rules of conduct. And which would never end.
Michael Brown’s play-acting for the cameras while New Orleans drowned sums up the entire mentality of an administration that creates its own reality. But daydreaming while you drive produces predictable results.
GW can’t delegate something he doesn’t really have. The only thing he has ever managed on his own has been a whiskey bottle, and he finally(but much too late)gave that up. He has never managed anything in his entire life, and for any of us to talk like he has, is a sad commentary on our own intelligence, and our own inability to face up to the terrible crisis(es) facing this country, and probably the entire human ecosystem. I hope that is as looney as some may take it.