Mr. President, Some Management Tips for You : Leadership: Not all consultants and scholars agree on the rap against Clinton, but a few offer advice.
This is the rap on President Clinton as a manager: He takes too long to make a decision. He has no clearly delineated vision for running the country. He’s mercurial and explosive. He is surrounded by friends and grants access to too many people. He takes on too much at a time and leaves his staff guessing about priorities.
Indeed, if Clinton were the chief executive of a Fortune 500 company, he’d probably be fired, business management experts say.
There’s not a President in recent memory who probably could pass muster as CEO with today’s shareholders and boards of directors. Still, Clinton’s management style and the White House staff’s purported disarray have come under considerable fire as critics point to the President’s backtracking and stumbles, especially in foreign policy.
Business experts and Washington insiders called Clinton’s choice last week of Budget Director Leon Panetta as his new chief of staff a good first step in reining in a loosely managed White House staff.
As to Clinton’s overall performance, consultants and academics willingly offer other advice, but some contend the whole discussion of Clinton’s abilities as a manager is off target.
“The job he has--to run the government--in no way can be compared to being the chief executive of a company, no matter how large. It is a false analogy,” said Jean Lipman-Blumen, who holds the Thornton F. Bradshaw distinguished chair in public policy at the Peter F. Drucker Management Center of the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont.
“The job of the President of the United States is so far more complex,” she said. It is as a leader, not as a manager, that the President should be judged, she contends.
Clinton is demonstrating leadership by the issues he tackles and the way he approaches them, she said. “Leaders deal with big issues, and they may not in their own tenure succeed, but they put those issues on the table, underscore them, say these are issues we have to address. A manager does more implementing and may set lower goals that are more achievable.”
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But management consultants and scholars say leadership and management are intertwined--that without management skills, leaders cannot attract, keep and invigorate followers, set the course and reach their goals.
Steve Jobs, a founder of Apple Computers and now chairman of Next Inc. in the Silicon Valley, “has a reputation as a great leader, but he can’t discern that (the kind of) life he forces people to live is a marathon and people get blown out,” said Scott Setrakian, vice president of William M. Mercer’s management consulting division in San Francisco. In a similar way, he said, Clinton may be burning out his staff by expecting them to keep up with his fast-moving and wide-ranging intellect.
On the other hand, Setrakian said, IBM’s new chairman and chief executive, Louis V. Gerstner Jr., “has done remarkable things, probably as big as all outdoors. He had to come in and set priorities, set out a vision and do it all immediately in the face of some pretty staggering problems. And I think the average IBM working stiff will be able to tell you what the goal is . . . what is his or her role in it and be fairly if not entirely enthusiastic about it.”
Clinton would do well, experts suggest, to practice a few skills intrinsic to every good management--or leadership--style: Set priorities, communicate them and delegate work. Another suggestion is aimed at Clinton’s enormous appetite for information and opinions: Know when to say “when.”
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Of Clinton’s style, “the common criticism is analysis paralysis, that he tends to study things to death, often in conflicting groups of people, without arriving at any coherent cross-policies, or decisions,” said Richard Ellsworth, an associate professor at Claremont’s Drucker Center. “He has a seeming lack of ability to delegate in an orderly manner, in a way that (staff) people aren’t running around all doing their own things.”
The underlying issue, Ellsworth said, “is a lack of core values that cut across the problems he faces, whether foreign or domestic . . . . Disraeli (the British statesman) once said the secret to success is a constancy of purpose. What we don’t see with Clinton is constancy of purpose, and a clear set of core values is what leads to that.”
It was a clearly articulated conservative ideology that gave Ronald Reagan the appearance, during his first term at least, of being a skillful manager. Later in his presidency, though, Reagan’s reputation was tarnished when his staff acted so much on their own that Reagan’s style came to be seen as delegation to the point of disengagement.
“Reagan was the consummate chairman of the board,” said Paul C. Nutt, professor of management science at the College of Business at Ohio State University. “He was interested in only the broadest sweep of policy. He had four to five guiding principles, and (chief of staff) Ed Meese and (other senior staffers) ran the government.”
However, said Setrakian of Mercer consulting, Reagan’s style probably would not suit Clinton. “I don’t think simplifying the vision thing will work for him,” Setrakian said. “But what he’s got to do is create a really strong sense of priorities, communicate them in a very simple way and live with them.”
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Some observers say Clinton’s vacillation stems from his ponderous decision-making process--and they contend that process is appropriate for his agenda.
“In terms of managing his overall impact on legislation and the country, I give him pretty high marks--much higher than the previous two Presidents--because he’s trying to do something and grapple with issues that have gone untouched for a lot of years,” said Raymond E. Miles, a professor at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
“These are obviously messy issues, and he’s addressing them the only way he can, by holding a lot of conversations about them in a lot of forums, maintaining an open mind about the final product,” Miles said. “Some people accuse him of being wishy-washy on those issues, but that’s very unfair, because those issues are new, enormous, multifaceted and messy. Initiating and dealing with fuzzy, messy issues lead to fuzzy, messy areas of the presidency.”
Even so, Clinton still comes off as inconsistent, said Craig Eric Schneier, a private management consultant in Princeton, N.J. “The chief executives I have seen be successful have been predictable and consistent, though not inflexible,” Schneier said.
“It’s a bit audacious for me to give the President advice,” he said, hesitating, “but Clinton could learn from Allied Signal’s chief executive, Larry Bossidy. . . . He has been able to make the tough calls in his organization yet provide the direction, vision and presence required to lead a large number of people.”
Schneier also cited Stanley Gault, who, when he became chief executive of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., “had to come into a tough situation, rally people and instill confidence. (He showed how to) present a strategic course, set a firm direction and pursue it . . . with consistency and persistence.”
There’s no one ideal management style, experts say, because good managers rely on their own personality strengths as well as on learned techniques. Baby Boomer Clinton may be more in step with current trends suggesting collegial and inclusive management strategies that forgo formalized autocratic or top-down hierarchies in favor of team consensus building and relying on strengths of those who must implement the decisions.
Clinton’s switch to Panetta from Thomas (Mack) McLarty signals a move away from a “circular” style of management, in which the executive surrounds himself with advisers, said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Hess chronicles internal White House organizations from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Reagan in his book “Organizing the Presidency;” he also served in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations.
Panetta may use a more classical chopped-off pyramid style, Hess said, in which access to the top narrows going up the chain of authority.
Franklin Roosevelt used a circular management style at a time when the White House staff was much smaller, but most subsequent Presidents have preferred the pyramid style, Hess said.
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Hess said Clinton’s management style “works very well if you have a great deal of energy, are very intelligent and work in a small enough universe.” The change to Panetta, he added, shows that Clinton recognizes “that the U.S. government is not Arkansas government writ large . . . (but) that’s in his head. I wonder, though, in his heart, can he let go? How much delegation can he live with?”
CEOs of the White House
Each of the past nine Presidents has brought his own personal management style--along with strengths and weaknesses--to the task of running the government.
* Bill Clinton: Informal organization allows wide access. A quick study whose intellectual curiosity prolongs decision-making. Difficulty limiting priorities and enunciating vision.
* George Bush: A methodical decision-maker; ran a relatively formal, hierarchical organization. Spurned “the vision thing” and seemed to lack overarching goals.
* Ronald Reagan: A delegater. An ideologue with simple goals whose staff understood those goals and often acted without prior approval. Called the consummate chairman of the board.
* Jimmy Carter: A micro-manager in a job demanding macro-management. Faltered at enlisting popular support for his global vision. Ran a more informal organization than predecessors.
* Gerald Ford: Hampered by circumstances of ascendancy, shortness of term and lack of opportunity to build his own organization. Blended congressional style with formal structure.
* Richard Nixon: Formed a more imperial version of Eisenhower’s organization that left him isolated. Allowed little dissension. Expanded duties of White House staff.
* Lyndon Johnson: Depended heavily on outside advisory systems: his “wise men.” Temperamental and bullying. Staff inclined to sycophancy. Diverted from other priorities by Vietnam War.
* John Kennedy: Organization followed legislative style; allowed wide access. Managed through crises with informal task- or crisis-specific groups of advisers.
* Dwight Eisenhower: A military-style organization. First to install a chief of staff-like assistant (Sherman Adams). Made decisions fast and communicated them clearly to staff.