The Trump Card

“A Thought Provoking Start to Your Weekend”

Despite everyone’s protestations, it’s ‘on the cards’ that Donald Trump will be the next President of the USA.

As Leonard Cohen’s lyrics prophetically put it:

“It’s coming from the sorrow in the street
The holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin’
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat
From the wells of disappointment
Where the women kneel to pray
From the grace of God in the desert here
And the desert far away
[Republicanism] is coming to the USA”

The question is: why has Trump so many followers? Does he have talents, or is he rightly regarded as the Darth Vader from the Dark Side? Do they see him as a great leader? Do they admire him? Do the overlook his personal weaknesses in the context of his alpha-type strengths? Or are his followers simply using him as a protest vote?
Perhaps the primal tribes want to appoint a disrupter to change what they see as a broken system? A turnaround president to deal with, what Noam Chomsky regards as major world-confronting issues that they see as being swept under the carpet? Have they had a guts full of the self righteous and the self-interested show ponies? An end to cronyism perhaps?

A straw poll in our office gave him an unanimous ‘thumbs down’. Yet to our surprise, Allan Lichtman, a distinguished professor in history says its ‘on the cards’ that Donald Trump will be the next President of the USA. What is worrying is Lichtman has correctly predicted the winner in every presidential election since 1984.

What are the lessons for us here down under? Is it a comedy show, or a wake-up call?

This has left our team at ISL working to make sense of this counter-intuitive dynamic, and working on solving the puzzle. Our SmartLeaderApps crew in the LeaderLAB have carried out an objective assessment using our executive leadership performance diagnostics. See what we in the strategic leadership field have to say …

The Institute’s SmartLeader Apps team ran Donald Trump through the Personal Dashboard to see how he measures up and evaluate whether he is ‘Fit to Lead’. They gained objective feedback on his leadership profile using the MOJO meter and the 063 mirrors.

Trumps Personal Dashboard. As you can see, neither his MOJO, Personal Leadership and Team Performance are not doing too well. The Risk Monitor has highlighted his fatal flaws and outlines some of his strengths.

Diagnostics: Donald Trump’s leadership feedback (based on feedback from 10 people)

Trumps Personal 063 results. The blue line depicts how he has rated himself in the 10 Leadership categories. The coloured bars show how his colleagues have rated him. All of his leadership aspects need development, especially the Motivator and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) sections.

Here is the interpretation, based on 10 feedback givers:

1. Donald Trump is most likely an extroverted RED Character. His Gifts are:

• Entrepreneurial – Donald quickly sees problems as opportunities
• Innovative – Donald constantly seeks improvement, and will scan the environment for ideas and connections to create new solutions
• Conceptual and strategic – Donald is adept at generating possible ideas and then analysing them for long-term feasibility
• Persuasive and convincing – can successfully champion ideas
• Clever and adaptable – Donald will go the extra mile in response to a challenge because Donald sees nothing as beyond his capabilities
• Assertive and questioning – able to express needs and request information or clarification as required
• Spontaneous and energetic – Donald will attract people through his excitement and optimism

2. His Blindspots are most likely:

• May be a little too challenging or stimulating
• May be overly critical due to high expectations
• May make spontaneous decisions that generate great change before thinking the implications through
• May unintentionally offend other people by not being aware of their feelings
• May sometimes overlook details, especially if stressed or rushed

3. His Performance Dashboard shows:

• A lowish MOJO – running on adrenalin perhaps which causes him to overplay his strengths and exacerbate his weaknesses
• His Leadership Performance is moderate – high on strategic thinking and Business Savvy; low on Motivator, and EQ
• Overstates his own capabilities (see the blue line) relative to how his feedback givers see his performance
• Has five red flashing warning lights signalling potential fatal leadership flaws
• These pilots highlight issues around – role model, EQ, possible elevated levels of narcism traits, low trust and misalignment with widely accepted values

4. His positive attributes are:

• Speaks candidly about tough issues
• Makes those who follow him feel their voices have been listened to
• Reshapes the business model to align with the changing environment

Without a doubt, Donald Trump has strengths, gifts and talent. But, a lesson for us all is that no matter how competent and strategic we are, we are likely to derail our career when we get stressed, overplay our strengths, and don’t keep an eye on the flashing warning lights that signal potential fatal character flaws.

Some lessons for us all:

1. Our character and our behaviour is being monitored 24/7 and what we do, even off hours in the locker room, will ultimately be used by others in the future. This is particularly so in the new digital world we live in.
2. No Matter how competent we might be, a breach of character and values may become our single point of failure.
3. When make senior appointments, the candidates need to be objectively evaluated using sophisticated diagnostics.

“Character is vital to success.
Focus on getting the personal and team character right
and success will follow”

take the step | up

Readers are invited to share their views, examples and experiences in the comments section below.