Managers Part VIII - Ethical Leadership

This is a pretty short lesson. If you want to be an ethical manager, treat people the way you want to be treated, the good ol' Golden Rule. Treat people with respect, tell the truth, don't abuse them.

Here are a few examples and illustrations:

Sometimes as a manger you need to fire people. I have fired people and I've been fired. More than a few times for both. Once you decide to fire someone, just do it. Don't make them work their whole shift, or have them train their replacement. If their performance is so bad that they need to go, then get them out! Many years ago I was fired from a job that I'd held for a few years. I deserved to be fired, there was no question about it, so I was quite surprised that I was still employed the day after the incident which occasioned my termination. In fact I worked the whole weekend, ran a full store inventory and took over the checkstand at 6:00 AM on Monday so my overnight checker could leave. At 7:00 AM, when the morning checker arrived I was informed that I was terminated. When I asked my manager why he waited all weekend before firing me, he told me that he didn't have anyone who could work the weekend.

For a positive example, for a few years I was an assistant manager. It was a retail grocery store, and like many retail stores, the busiest times were during the holidays. This sometimes caused problems, since people would attempt to take off for a week just when it was busiest, or you would have entire departments asking off at the same time. If you wanted to keep the place running you couldn't give people off during the holidays, other than their regular days off. Some store managers would take off themselves, leaving the place in the hands of less senior supervisors, but our store manager would always schedule himself to work the holidays and the busy weekends - as an example to everyone else.

Employees also see how you treat other people, like your customers. Many companies make a habit of lying to their customers; employees see this and assume that if you're lying to one group of people, you're just a liar in general.

The final example is a fairly recent one. The store that I was working in was going to close. It was losing almost a million dollars a year - it was an understandable business decision. But when the corporate leadership was asked directly about it they lied - assuring me and others that the store was not going to close. When the truth inadvertently leaked out, they continued to lie, even sending a corporate manager in to convince the store personnel that the store was not closing, and sending him back to lie again when I told my former employees the truth after I had been fired. Several managers from the store quit after this, not able to trust the company that had put so much effort into lying to them.

Being dishonest, treating employees badly, cheating - all may seem the best business decision short-term, but will always come back to bite you in the long-term.

Managers Part VII - Empowerment vs. Micromanaging

Don't let the Either/Or title mislead you, it's not all one or all the other, empowerment and micromanaging are two ends of continuum; a manager can be somewhat micromanaging, or empower her employees so some extent, or a manager can be empowering in some aspects of the job and micromanaging in others. Whether either end of the spectrum is consider good or bad depends on who is making the judgement. A manager who subscribes to "Theory X", the belief that employees are inherently lazy and unambitious will naturally result in micromanaging, even if that perception is inaccurate. Managers who lean toward "Theory Y", the position wherein employees are responsible and industrious probably tend delegate and empower more. Employees who believe that they know their jobs and how to do them efficiently and accurately, will desire to be supervised by empowering managers while those who, for one reason or another, do not want to take responsibility will prefer micromanaging: "just tell me what to do". What's good or bad management depends on a number of factors: the level or training, experience and ability of employees; the ambition and work ethic of those employees; the balance that the manager employs while supervising his employees; the complexity of the tasks that are expected of the employees; the amount of "free" time that the manager has to micromanage and many more.

One of the greatest myths about management is that managers should working side by side with their employees, showing them that they "aren't afraid to get their hands dirty". But a manager who spends all of her time doing the same work as her employees is the ultimate in the micromanager, because she is doing the work herself. This type of manager won't be doing any empowering of employees, because she is right there with them...all the time, they don't learn to think or act on their own, because they're never on their own.

Whether or Not You Like His Politics, Trump is Unfit to Be President

For those who support Donald Trump there are a variety of reasons for that support. In my opinion, most of those reasons are pretty tenuous. The only one that comes close to making any sense is the lesser-of-two-evils rationale. For those who believe that a liberal Democratic agenda is bad for our country, voting for Trump might seem like the better option. But even from that point of view, Trump is no conservative. If you are voting for Trump and are a conservative, you are holding your nose and simply voting for anyone who is on the Republican ticket. I understand the position that you're in. My own disgust with the way the Republicans, not only in Congress but also at the local level, have conducted themselves over the last eight years would make it impossible for me to vote for any Republican, for any office. Sure, there's the Libertarian Party candidate, but we all know that the way our system is currently set up, a candidate from any party other than the Republicans or the Democrats has no chance of winning a national election. Libertarians, despite their congruence with conservatives on many economic issues, are on the opposite side of the fence on most social issues, like marijuana legalization. A conservative who wants Clinton to lose will not cast a so-called wasted vote for Johnson, just as a Democrat uncomfortable with Clinton would think twice about voting for Green party candidate Jill Stein. I sympathize with the dilemma that you're in.

But, Donald Trump, aside from political considerations, is unfit on many levels to be president. One problem is that he just doesn't know what he's talking about. His speeches indicate a basic and fundamental lack of understanding regarding how government works. I'm not talking about the back scratching and quids pro quo, the vote trading, and the back room deals that often are part of politics, no I'm referring to the basics of what the constitution says about separation of powers, the restrictions on what a president can accomplish, how laws are made, the relationship between the president and the military, the realities of international diplomacy, global economics...well - everything. One could argue that a president doesn't have to be an expert in everything - that's what advisors are for.  But Trump has a track record of not listening to his advisors, and no matter who is advising, the president, as President George W. Bush said, is "the decider".

Another issue is his temperament. Trump has demonstrated a proclivity toward attacking his opponents. Sure, politicians do that all the time, don't they? But Trump attacks and insults, not just political opponents, but news organizations, talk show hosts, Republicans that don't support him, and he does it in a style reminiscent of schoolyard bullying. Would his notoriously thin skin be an asset in delicate situations that require a cool head? You tell me.

Then there's the lying. The narrative has long been that Clinton is dishonest, untrustworthy and a serial liar. Where accusations against her are generally based on feelings, Trump seemingly cannot open his mouth without lying about something. And when he gets caught in a lie he just repeats it, louder and more aggressively. I know that lying is not something that's rare in a politician, and I don't expect elected officials to be angels, but the frequency and breadth of the lies is staggering.

Finally, does anyone think, that in any category, Trump will follow through on anything that he says if it is inconvenient for him? He says what people want to hear, without any consideration of how it can be done. He appeals to fear and hatred and knows how to push the right emotional buttons, but does anyone really think that he would make a good president?

Yeah, I've Considered the Accusations

One of the things that I hear from time to time on the internet and in face-to-face conversations is that we (you know, "libtards", "Hillbots", "lefties") don't care about the accusations made about Hillary Clinton, or refuse to consider them. On the contrary, what I don't do is accept everything that is thrown at her at face value, without question, what I do is attempt to ascertain the facts whenever possible, to see if there is anything to the accusation. First I look at the accusation itself, is it something that I should care about? We're electing a President, not a church pastor or a Boy Scout leader. Frankly, whether the President of the United States has personal ethics or morality that lines up with mine is really irrelevant to whether they do a decent job leading our nation. Few would argue that President Carter was a fundamentally decent man, but most would agree that he was, at best, ineffective as President. Next, does a particular trait put a candidate outside the norm? For instance, Clinton is widely accused of being a serial liar (although few actual examples can be found) - does anyone truly think that politicians don't lie, at least occasionally? Is the standard being applied to one candidate being universally applied?  Finally, are the accusations actually true? This last one is a little tougher and takes some work, rather than simply relying on internet memes, sound bites, or tweets.

In looking at Secretary Clinton's situation we see the "Where there's smoke there's fire" fallacy. Surely with so many things popping up, it all must be true. But why haven't any of the charges stuck? What about the never-ending Benghazi hearings that produced no evidence of wrongdoing despite admittedly being a tool by the Republicans to discredit her? What about the FBI investigation into the use of the private email server that resulted in no charges being filed? What about the allegations that  the Clinton Foundation gave government access to those who donated large sums of money? None of these allegations went anywhere. Anti-Clinton partisans believe that the lack of any criminal charges shows how untouchable the Clintons are and can get away with any and all illegal activity. Think about that for a minute - Clinton is so powerful that she can deflect any consequences for her actions, but not powerful enough to be able to quash the allegations themselves. Perhaps the explanation is that there's little to nothing there, but opponents just throw as much mud as they can, hoping that something sticks.

So what are the main allegations?

The private email server:
The basic facts are indisputable. Clinton used a private email account, housed on a server located in her home for email correspondence rather than a State Department email account. The big issue here is how you interpret this. Opponents will argue that this put us at risk due to classified security information being hacked. But it wasn't. Lost in all this is the fact that previous Secretaries of State (and surely other cabinet officers) did this as well. Colin Powell is on record as describing how he purposely circumvented security protocols. The FBI Director characterized this as careless. Clinton admits that it was a bad idea and would not do it again knowing what she knows now. An incident of bad judgement, but hardly rising to the level of treason or criminal activity as the "lock her up" crowd believes.

Benghazi:

The reason that anyone even knows about the private email server is the Benghazi hearings. Yes, four people, including the ambassador, were killed during an attack on our embassy in Libya. As terrible as this was, people have been killed in embassy attacks before. Despite multiple Congressional hearings by Republicans whose stated goal was to bring Clinton down, it was determined that no wrongdoing could be laid at Clinton's feet. 

The Clinton Foundation:

The Foundation takes in donations from around the world. The Clintons have been accused of favoring nations that have donated large sums to the foundation, so called pay for play. Plenty of insinuations, but no evidence. At all. Neither Secretary Clinton nor former President Clinton take any salary nor profit personally. 

Clinton cannot be trusted (she lies):

Clinton has been characterized as untrustworthy and dishonest for years. It was only recently that an example could be provided. Clinton had stated on several occasions that she had not sent any classified material through her private email server. FBI Director Comey was asked in a Congressional hearing if the mails contained classified material and had to answer that there were. This was pounced upon by the Republicans and many media outlets as proof that Clinton was lying. What was overlooked was nuance that Comey's answers actually contained. He testified that the emails were not properly marked and a person who’s an “expert at what’s classified and what’s not classified” would reasonably infer “that those three documents were not classified.” So, no, she did not lie. 

Granted, I would have liked to see a candidate who did not have the baggage that Clinton has so that we could focus on the issues, rather than the scandal du jour, but we don't have those other hypothetical candidates. Joe Biden chose not to run, O'Malley dropped out and Sanders did not get enough primary support to beat Clinton. So Clinton is who we have. In my opinion the accusations hurled at her are political, and contain as much fact as any partisan attack, but do not preclude her from being fit to be president of the United States.