Empathy is Leadership
By Robert C. Bordone
I submitted this piece for publication on Wednesday, September 30, 2020 following the first Presidential Debate. With President Trump’s diagnosis of COVID-19 the following day and the unexpected and rapid turning of the news cycle, it no longer seemed publishable in any major news outlet. However, I decided to publish it here because I believe the underlying argument still has merit during this election season, and beyond.
Sadly, there are few topics in American life where there is near-consensus, but most Americans agree that Tuesday night’s Presidential debate was disgraceful. For good reason, many have focused on President Trump’s apparent refusal to stand against white supremacy when directly asked by moderator Chris Wallace.
But it was just one of countless moments that call into question how manifestly unfit President Trump is for leadership in any form, never mind the Presidency.
Particularly poignant for me was the way he spoke about Vice President Bidens’ two sons.
Biden: And speaking of my son, the way you talk about the military, the way you talk about them being losers and being and just being suckers. My son was in Iraq. He spent a year there. He got the Brown [sic] Star. He got the Conspicuous Service Medal. He was not a loser. He was a Patriot and the people left behind there were heroes.
Trump: Really?
Biden: And I resent-
Trump: Are you talking Hunter, are you talking about Hunter?
Biden: I’m talking about my son, Beau Biden, you’re talking about Hunter?
Trump: I don’t know Beau. I know Hunter. Hunter got thrown out of the military. He was thrown out dishonorably discharged.
Biden: That’s not true he was not dishonorably discharged.
Trump: For cocaine use. And he didn’t have a job until you became vice president.
Biden: None of that is true.
I have read and re-read this colloquy and I still can’t get my head around the base meanness and lack of empathy it represents.
I would hope even the least charitable among us, when hearing someone speak of their dead son who was a veteran would simply say something akin to, “I am so sorry for your loss,” or “You must be proud.” And if speaking with someone whose son has struggled with addiction, an expression of empathy – or even awkward silence – is what follows, not mockery.
Trump’s cruel and misanthropic response has stuck with me. And not because I’m a touchy-feely liberal or because I don’t have a lively sense that politics can be nasty and mean, requiring thick skin, sharp elbows, and competitive instincts.
It struck me because this perverse absence of basic human empathy – concentrated in this moment, but a fundamental hallmark of Trump’s character – make him simply unfit for office. Nothing about his response made the President stronger, more fit, or a bigger man by saying it. Quite the contrary.
In some circles, empathy is seen as weakness. Several years ago, I presented at a conference for a European foreign ministry where there was a lively debate over whether empathy was a desirable quality in diplomacy.
Despite skepticism about empathy’s merits in some circles, over the past decade, I feel reasonably confident that a majority of persons see empathy as a positive character trait and can distinguish empathy from weakness or sympathy.
But even now, I get the sense that many view empathy as a “nice to have quality” but not as one absolutely fundamental to effective leadership or competent decision-making.
This is simply wrong.
In the office of the Presidency, the absence of empathy is a genuine national security risk, as problematic as an inability to stand firm against an adversary, for example.
Perhaps more than any other flaw (and there are many) that this President brings to governance, his utter lack of empathy – embodied in this particular moment in the debate – shakes me to the core.
How does empathy help a President govern? Of course, it matters in times of national grieving – from Ronald Reagan’s extraordinary ability to comfort the nation after the space shuttle Challenger disaster to George W. Bush’s rallying the nation with a megaphone at the site of the World Trade Center just days after 9/11.
But it’s not just a tool for offering comfort, important as that is.
It’s also a tool for critical decision-making and high stakes negotiations: Consider John F. Kennedy assessing options during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Empathy – the ability to understand that Soviet Premier Khrushchev found himself in a terrible box of his own making – allowed Kennedy to deputize his brother to reach a deal that kept Khrushchev’s dignity intact, one that he could say yes to. Toughness and resolve without empathy would likely have led to nuclear holocaust.
More recently, empathy – the understanding that your negotiation counterpart is a human being with national interests, pride, aspirations, and dignity – allowed President Obama for the first time to thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Was his strategic empathy aided by the reality of harsh economic sanctions? Of course. But what was essential for crafting an agreement that met the U.S. national interest – was his capacity to perspective-take and craft a solution that was yes-able to Iranian leadership under enormous pressure from their side to just say ‘no.’
Without empathy, a leader might mobilize the military to clear the streets of peaceful protestors with tear gas and flash a Bible as a photo-op in front of a church. Without empathy, a leader might repeatedly and publicly blame a rising and powerful rival for the entirety of a global pandemic instead of creatively finding ways to combine forces with that frenemy against the shared threat to the global economy that the virus represents.
Students of negotiation are almost universally surprised when half of what I teach is about empathy. “Isn’t this supposed to be about getting what I want?” they ask. “Of course it is! That’s why empathy matters so much!” By the end of a course, almost without exception, they come to see empathy as the stealth weapon of great negotiation and great leadership.
Frankly, I’m tired of hearing empathy being confused with weakness or naivete in some circles; and I’m tired of hearing it as “nice to have” or “bonus” quality in other circles that are more sympathetic to the idea but still not fully aware that it is the keystone of all good governance.
Empathy is not sufficient for leadership. But it is essential for decision-making, for negotiating, for leading. Policy differences matter. But without empathy, they are irrelevant. And Trump doesn’t have it.