It is often said that we humans learn best through experience. Certainly we seek those with experience to lead, whether it is in work, worship, or politics. But it is equally true that time alone is a poor predictor of experience. Twenty years of learning or a single year repeated twenty times are not the same, as I suspect many of us have observed.
I've done more than my fair share of reviewing candidates and hiring folks in the course of my career. I like to think I was pretty good at it, at least by the measure that should matter, the success of those whom I chose. Quite early on, I found that resumes and credentials alone were often an unreliable gauge of talent or those other qualities that mark one person as exceptional and another unremarkable. And, I made it a point to shun opportunists, sycophants, and relatives.
Some organizations, recognizing the difficulty of discerning those qualities of excellence in a candidate employ personality and psychological profiles to suss out desired traits for a particular role. While I have not used such devices, I do not scoff at them if they are used to guide someone on to a path that suits them. As a screening tool, however, they are not a replacement for the insights of those who know what is required in a given position, because they have done it themselves.
Observing the process of selection, screening, and qualification for the highest offices in our country over the course of my lifetime, there appears to be a direct correlation between the qualifications of those selected by voters and the subordinates they in turn choose to fill vital roles in their cabinets. Great leaders choose the best and brightest minds, the most capable of candidates in their field. They are not interested in ideological purity or personal loyalty as a litmus test for service, in fact they expect those they select to be independent and critical thinkers.
I was reminded of this in reading Doris Kearn Godwin's memoir, An Unfinished Love Story, which chronicles the events that occurred over the years she and her husband, Richard Godwin, served two Presidents and several candidates for that office as advisors, speechwriters and policy makers. They were not uniformly calm or uneventful years by any means, in fact they were times of tectonic change in the US and around the world, times which saw the assassination of a President, and a Presidential candidate, as well as great civil rights leaders, the escalation of war, and monumental shifts in the social and emotional character of our nation.
What struck me most was the degree to which loyal but independent thinkers like Godwin and Kearns could inform and infuriate the leaders they served, often at personal expense, but prevail, helping them achieve some of their greatest accomplishments. It speaks volumes about them and the men they served, offering a clear picture of what should guide the actions of those who advise and serve the highest office in the land.
In my rather more modest career, I made it my own practice to hire people who were smarter and more knowledgeable than me, knowing that success depends on the quality and character of those who form the backbone of an organization and not the head alone. When an elected leader is someone who asserts superior knowledge and expertise in virtually every field, far exceeding those who have dedicated their lives and careers to study and practice in those same fields, we should expect that the only qualification that matters is the willingness of his subordinates to do what they are told, and to do it without question.
We have already seen the results obtained when hiring and firing is a capricious practice learned not through experience but as a part previously played on reality television. We can expect frequent and sudden turnover if or when it becomes desirable to shift responsibility and lay blame, or when any member is so foolish as to offer counsel in contradiction to the received wisdom of the supreme and all knowing leader. We have seen this play before--all too many times and we know the outcome: chaos, ineptitude, and eventually such monumental failure that defies excuse. It turns out that, in the words of Oscar Wilde, "Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes".
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