In this brief monologue, Tom Guarriello, Ph.D., reflects on a recent New York Times op‑ed by columnist David Brooks titled “For 2008: An American Themistocles.” Guarriello explains Brooks’s argument that Themistocles—like Winston Churchill—was a leader perfectly suited to a specific crisis (the Persian Wars) but was later displaced when the crisis ended. He connects this historical analogy to modern U.S. politics, noting that for the past four decades American voters have favored visionary, outsider presidents (e.g., Reagan, Johnson) with grand, conceptual agendas. Brooks contends that today’s challenges—exemplified by the rise of Al‑Qaeda and Osama bin Laden—require a different type of leader: a Washington‑savvy executor who understands the mechanics of power and can get things done, rather than a big‑picture visionary. Guarriello mentions that his consulting firm uses the situational‑leadership framework to help organizations match the right leader to the right context. He concludes by asking his audience, especially a colleague named Bill, to share their thoughts on what leadership qualities the United States needs now and who might embody them. He promises to link the Brooks article in the video description.
Chapters
Well, hi guys, it's Tom Guarriello here on a kind of a gloomy early spring morning in Connecticut, recovering from a nasty cold over this weekend, but I think I can finally get through a few minutes without sneezing. I wanted to talk this morning just a little bit about an op-ed piece that appeared in yesterday's New York Times by David Brooks. Now, David Brooks is, I think, a very interesting columnist. If you get beyond labels, you know, liberal, conservative, etc., etc., I think Brooks is always somebody who you can count on for a thoughtful piece. And agree with him or not, I have a lot of respect for his thinking. And yesterday's piece was entitled "For 2008: An American Themistocles." Now Themistocles, it turns out, was a Greek leader who led in the Persian Wars. And it turns out that Themistocles was the winner of the Persian Wars, not Leonidas, who is often referred to as the winner of the Persian Wars. Now, what the heck does that have to do with anything? Well, what Brooks argues is that Themistocles was one of these leaders, very much like Winston Churchill, it sounds to me, who was perfect for a particular situation and then was quickly deposed after that situation was no longer prevalent. So if we take Churchill, for example, Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of Great Britain during World War II, of course, and prior to World War II and after World War II, Churchill was not a particularly successful leader. In fact, he was quickly voted out of office after the war was over. But during the war, he was the perfect leader for the perfect time. And this, this particular idea that leaders are effective in particular kinds of situations and that certain kinds of leadership characteristics are really important for particular situations is an idea that we in our consulting firm have used to help leadership think about both choosing the right person at the right time and tailoring their leadership approach to the right situation. So, for example, what Brooks is saying here is that, gee, you know, in that for the past 40 years, what Americans have looked for in presidents has been a visionary, someone with a Washington outsider who could come in and had a fresh vision of how to make things happen. His argument in this piece is that, you know, what's happened recently is that we've been— Americans have been kind of outfoxed by shrewder leaders in various kinds of contexts. He uses Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden as one of the examples, and that we've been outfoxed by people who understand the situation better than we do. His remedy is he doesn't have a particular individual that he recommends, as right for this kind of situation, but his remedy is that we need to choose a leader this time who is more savvy, who is more familiar with the, the ways of power in Washington and able to get things done, rather than a leader necessarily that has a grand overriding vision of how things happen. You know, in the world of— not just leadership, but in the world of psychology, there's often a lot of thinking about, you know, are you a big conceptual thinker or are you kind of an incremental, executional-oriented thinker? Brooks' argument is that in this situation what we need is the latter, a real executor, somebody who really knows how to get things done rather than someone with a grand vision. Of how things might be, you know, the city on the hill kind of idea that Ronald Reagan came in with, the Great Society that Lyndon Johnson had and so on. So I'm interested in your thoughts. What, first of all, what do you see as the requirements for leadership in this kind of situation as far as the United States is concerned? What kind of leader do you think we need? And secondly, who do you think best fits that role? Bill. I'm interested in that, of course. I'm interested in your thoughts on it, so let me know. And catch up with you guys soon. Take care, bye. Oh, and I'll put a link to the David Brooks article over there. Take care, bye.
