Unfit to Lead? Whether You’re Thinking about Donald Trump or Others, Here’s How to Know
By: Thomas Bateman
Tags: Careers, Management, Work, Leadership, Trump

Even more people than usual are making pronouncements about whether President Trump is unfit for command. Most have rock-solid opinions: either yes he is or no he is not.

Source: Pixaway

Whether appraising narcissistic presidents or our bosses at work, even those of us without legal or psychiatric expertise have a right to assess our leaders’ competence.

Thinking about Leaders

Let’s leave the law to the lawyers and the psychiatric assessments to the psychiatrists. Instead, let’s work with some fundamentals that we all can use to appraise the competence of any leader in any sector.

Thinking clearly and productively about leader competence works best when we avoid both hero worship and hateful demonizing. It helps that we do not need to decipher mental capacity or personality traits. The key is to look for observable behaviors that give leaders the best chance to deliver the best results.

Not just any results, but results that benefit ‘followers” — constituents, in the case of elected officials. Performance on behalf of others is an essential bottom line; real leadership concerns other people, not just personal power and glory.

How Should Leaders Lead?

With that performance criterion as the objective, how should leaders lead? Based on hordes of studies, the useful but unsatisfying answer is that it depends. The best leader style depends on context (for example, a business turnaround vs. a startup), the nature of the task (team vs. individual, or output volume vs. creativity), and followers (high school students or experienced professionals).

Or running a family business vs. serving as a public official. Or heading a presidential campaign vs. leading a great democracy.

However, it’s hard to embrace “it depends” as an answer. We tend to assess leaders and candidates using just one or two criteria. We base votes on political party, appearance, and charisma. Sometimes we want empathy or authenticity. Some give high priority to character and ethics, while others care less.

In reality, though, great leadership is never as simple as a few particular attributes. Even character and ethics reside subjectively in the eye of the beholder, as recent presidential actions and reactions make clear. Moreover, empathy and authenticity alone aren’t up to the complex job of leading successfully.

Sheer Competence

If there is a single key to leadership, it is sheer competence. Not a mental health assessment or a personality trait, or a single attribute like IQ or EQ, but behaving in ways most likely to produce good results. I’m talking about plain-old basic competence, not the long lists of popular competencies that many companies work with.

Competence as key to leadership doesn’t seem like a stunning revelation. However, except for President Trump — often with a focus on psychological issues — we don’t think or talk much about what leader competence really is.

Competent leadership solves problems and captures opportunities that improve performance. The boss alone does not have to do it all, but ut these things should get done on the leader’s watch, via countless individual and collaborative efforts.

Leading with competence requires thinking strategically about performance challenges, optimally applying human capital to those challenges, and using problem-solving processes that are most likely to succeed.

Problem Solving in Real Time

Whether a problem is solved, or an opportunity is one really captured, is best known later when key results come in. But the most significant performance challenges typically develop, unfold, and resolve (or not) over long periods. How can we assess our leaders in real time, when outcomes are highly uncertain?

Here’s the answer: by observing their problem-solving processes. I’ve written about this elsewhere in greater detail, and specifically regarding mistakes made with the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina. A leader is not incompetent — the double negative is appropriate when suspecting incompetence — when you see them:

Spotting problems and opportunities. Competent leaders pay attention, understand what’s happening, and face reality. Incompetence includes operating in a bubble, not seeking information, and rejecting facts and others’ concerns. This is a good place to start if you want to assess President Trump’s leadership — and it’s your call.

Tackling the essential challenges head-on. Leaders impress us when they take effective action on issues we care most about and disappoint when they make things worse or don’t take needed action.

Finding the best solutions. Competent leaders consider a variety of solutions and anticipate their likely impact: their upsides and risks, including downstream and unintended consequences. Incompetence shows itself in simplistic ideas and accepting or rejecting solutions based on disinformation and bias.

Following through. Competent leaders don’t just make decisions (for instance, sign executive orders). They plan how to implement their solutions, and execute well. They stay informed to make sure that good ideas reach fruition.

Monitoring results and adjusting as needed. This is more the exception than the rule. Incompetence includes not objectively assessing progress, not learning from mistakes, and failing to adopt better tactics when the original ones prove inadequate.

Importantly, the best leaders also leverage character strengths to ensure that 1) ethics is a high priority when engaging in these processes, and 2) solutions will provide more benefit for more people.

The Most Competent Leaders

Sometimes, when appropriate, competent leaders do those things alone. However, someone who operate solo in an authority position, no matter how lofty the title, cannot lead effectively for long. Competent leaders engage other people to capitalize on their relevant brainpower, perspectives, solutions, and consequent commitment to implementing well.

To assess political leaders, choose one or more problems that you care about: perhaps health care, education, taxes, immigration, the judiciary, security, climate change, social strife, international relations, or jobs. Then, consider how competently your elected officials are acting on it. How well do they engage multiple stakeholders, acquire useful ideas, develop “across-the-aisle” commitment, apply the best long-term solutions, and achieve results benefiting more than just a few?

You can apply this problem-solving and performance lens to assess the (in)competence of anyone in a leadership position. When viewed as problem-solving activities and results, leader competence is not a fixed trait that a person either does or does not possess. It is a process that anyone can learn and apply, to great effect.

A version of this post appeared initially at PsychologyToday.com.