On June 26, 1940, as Britain was girding for the onslaught of the Luftwaffe, Clementine Churchill wrote her husband, Winston, an admonishing note.
“There is a danger of your being generally disliked by your colleagues and subordinates because of your rough, sarcastic and overbearing manner,” she warned the prime minister, who was otherwise preoccupied by the prospect of imminent Nazi invasion, a scheming foreign secretary, a restive backbench and the absence of material support from the United States.
“I have noticed a deterioration in your manner, and you are not so kind as you used to be,” she continued. “It is for you to give the orders and if they are bungled – except for the King, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Speaker – you can sack anyone and everyone. Therefore with this terrific power you must combine urbanity, kindness and if possible Olympic calm.”
Winston got the message and found ways to make amends. As his private secretary, Jock Colville, later recalled, “When he was at No. 10 there was always laughter in the corridors, even in the darkest and most difficult times.”
The Battle of Britain was not decided because Churchill chose to behave better. But given his indispensability at the moment of crisis, it might have been lost if he hadn’t won the confidence and love of those who made the victory possible.
The subject of bad bosses is again in the news thanks to Amy Klobuchar, U.S. senator, Democratic presidential aspirant, and, as a recent story in the Times made clear, the living antithesis of whatever “Minnesota Nice” is supposed to be. She throws binders at underlings. She suspects office moles. She attempts to sabotage the job prospects of those who want to resign. She reproaches her staff with her own self-pity.
Though the senator has her defenders – 61 former staffers signed a public letter supporting her – the essential truth of the Times’ story is attested by the fact that for years she has had among the highest rates of staff turnover in the Senate. Klobuchar admits to being “tough” and having “high expectations.” But the behavior described by The Times isn’t tough. It’s horrible.
Anyone who’s had a horrible boss knows the difference between tough and horrible When I was young and new to journalism, my editor, a man who terrorized a succession of secretaries and whose eyebrows could sink the Titanic, called me into his office intent on chewing me out over a minor task he thought I hadn’t performed. Except that I had performed it. The memory of his crestfallen expression when he realized that remains indelible.
He was a man of great erudition and editorial skill. His work ethic was ferocious. But his journalistic career proved to be trivial. He inspired no loyalty and, for all of his talent, left no trace.
Not all horrible bosses are failed leaders. Lyndon Johnson was horrible, but there was the Civil Rights Act. Steve Jobs was horrible, but there was the Mac. Horribleness can be correlated with vision and perfectionism just as niceness can be correlated with mediocrity and failure. Mainly speaking, though, horrible bosses make for leadership failures.
Office tantrums bespeak an absence of self-control: There’s a line from Bill Clinton’s infamous “purple fits” and the scandal that nearly wrecked his presidency. Suspiciousness undermines the trust necessary for effective leadership: Richard Nixon’s paranoia almost surely created more political enemies than it uncovered. High-handedness and jealousy drive away talent and ambition.
And then there is the 45th president of the United States. The president’s apologists may defend his management habits as evidence of genius, but Jim Mattis, John Kelly, Gary Cohn and H.R. McMaster would probably tell a different story. And regardless of what you think of the administration’s policies, it’s impossible to think of any other White House in which the distempers of the man translated so directly to the incompetence of execution.
This is where the question of Klobuchar’s temperament should concern voters. Whatever else Americans may need, what we don’t need is an irascible executive running an administration with the serfs made to pay the price. Calming the country requires calm at the top.
It isn’t too late for Klobuchar, who in so many other respects has all the right qualifications to lead, to make amends. She can take Clementine Churchill’s wisdom to heart. She can call every staffer she’s wounded and tell them she’s sorry, that it wasn’t right, that she’ll never behave that way again. The statute of limitations on apologies never expires.
Bret Stephens is a columnist for The New York Times.
