Leadership and entitlement

published Feb 08 2009

How many of our leaders can admit, without cop-outs or disclaimers, to screwing up?

It appears the honeymoon is over; the end came sooner than expected.

Less than three weeks after being sworn in as President of the United States -- twice, for good measure -- Barack Obama must be realizing what a difficult job it is he applied for and got. Campaigning was rather a different matter. Persuading people to support you was a matter of projecting the right image, having a notion of what you want to do, and communicating your ideas well.

As history now has it, Obama's convincing victory was a function of his color, the platform of change he offered as well as his charisma and eloquence. It was the best of personality politics at work, something that's not so bad if you're talking about a personality that's not hollow or malevolent to begin with.

For the US President, winning must seem like years ago.

Some people were disappointed at his inaugural address. They were expecting the same rhetoric that gave them goosebumps and brought tears into their eyes. But there was none of that on that chilly Tuesday morning in Washington. What Americans and the world heard was a stark reminder that these were trying times and that Obama intended to deliver the change he had promised.

The challenges were early. The first occurred even before inauguration when the nominee for treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, was found to have failed to pay $34,000 in taxes. At that time, Obama stood by his choice, maintaining he was the best man for the job. Geithner was grilled during his confirmation hearing but got the post
nonetheless.

The nominee for health and human services secretary, Tom Daschle, acted differently, even though he committed the same offense (only that the amount involved exceeded $100 thousand). Daschle withdrew his acceptance of the nomination even before his confirmation hearings, saying he did not wish to distract the President from the real tasks he must attend to.

Accepting the withdrawal, Obama said: "I think I screwed up." Pray tell, does this now mean the President thinks he screwed up with Geithner, too but was forced to go along with his choice since the treasury nominee did not withdraw?

These early inconsistencies remind his swooning fans all over the world that President Obama is quite distinct from Phenomenon Obama, as The Economist so aptly puts it. Reality check: change cannot be effected as drastically and as instantly. Compromises are inevitable. But it does not mean you cannot start. Or that you should waver.

For instance, while Obama, on his first full day in office, signed an order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the actual closure will not be until after a year.

While he has made endless pitches for Congress to approve a stimulus package amounting to more than $825 billion to jump-start the economy, he still has to hurdle the realities of partisan politics in Washington. Some think he is being too aggressive; some are wary of the allocations, trying to "trim the fat" as one Republican senator put it. Undeterred, Obama goes around warning that the crisis could just as easily turn to catastrophe if nothing is done, and soon. “Don’t come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped create the crisis,” he said. The Senate votes tomorrow on the stimulus bill.

And while the nation seems to agree with Obama's statements that hefty bonuses for executives of companies bailed out by US taxpayers were "shameful," not everybody applauded his move to cap the compensation of these executives to $500,000 a year. Some called him Big Brother, reminding him nobody does that anymore. But even if Donald Trump did not say he agreed with Obama, the President would have insisted on this manner of enforcing accountability for bailout funds. Failure must not be rewarded, he says.

If the early days are any indication, Mr. Obama's decisiveness should be a consolation, at the very least, to Americans in these dire times. Here is a leader willing to ruffle some feathers, do things differently from the accustomed (and failed) ways. So much of a
consolation indeed that he eclipses the Elliot Spitzers and the Rod Blagojeviches and the Geithners and the Daschles and all other public figures who simply felt they were entitled to behave the way they did, convinced a different set of rules applied.

**

The Philippines is not the place to look, either, if one is looking for inspiration from public leaders.

We never did acquire that habit of accepting criticism. Surveys with unfavorable results get dismissed as "mere perception" or "biased" or having "questionable methodology." If there's a shortage in cooking gas, you have an energy secretary that insists there is no problem and that it is "just a distribution problem." If pre-need companies fail, you have regulators who say they did not have enough manpower to do their jobs and a Palace spokesman who asks the public to give these fumbling regulators a chance.

If a chain of rural banks closes shop, endangering the life savings of thousands of depositors, you have a central bank which cannot do something about double-your-money schemes, claiming ingenious bankers have their way of circumventing guidelines. You have a state prosecutor who thinks he could get way with anything just as long as he operates in the informal economy. You have lawmakers who hardly show up at work or contribute meaningfully to discussions, even if they were there.

Why can't they just say they screwed up and then face the consequences of what they have done or failed to do? Oh I can go on and on with this depressing list and one basic idea will remain. They all feel entitled – to be greedy or lazy, to cheat, to demand special treatment -- just because they believe another set of rules apply to them.

Insulting, too, are their efforts to hide their smugness. Since election is just a year and change away, we now see this or that politician taking up this cause, calling himself Mr. This or Ms. That or styling himself as the agent of change this part of the world. Jeez, they don't get it, do they? They don't have to try hard to be so-called local versions of Obama. All they really have to do is remember who their real bosses are – the Filipino people – and try to be the best versions of themselves.

That is, if such a thing exists in the first place.