Interesting article by James Carville this past week on Kamala Harris’s Best Strategy to Defeat Trump. In it, he suggests, “People know exactly what Mr. Trump’s shtick is.” That, in turn, suggests Harris needs to let Trump be Trump and position herself as the agent of change. In an election like this, Carville says, “The shepherd of tomorrow wins the sheep.” True for them. True for you.
Carville’s advice to Harris fits into the be, do, say framework.
- Say. Let Trump dig his own hole and then say she’s the shepherd of the new way forward.
- Explicitly break with some of Biden’s policies to do something different.
- Talk about what she’s learned and how she has changed herself.
We’ll see how this plays out in tomorrow’s debate.
Application to your own leadership campaign
Make no mistake about this, you’re running for election every day. Your career is a whole series of campaigns either to get new jobs or keep the job you’ve got. Further, in an ever-changing world, if you’re not the shepherd of tomorrow, the sheep are going to find another shepherd. If you lose the sheep up, across or down, you lose your job.
Communicate as the shepherd of tomorrow
One way or another, you’re going to get positioned in people’s minds. Choose to be proactive instead of reactive. Choose to be optimistic instead of pessimistic. Choose to be forward-looking instead of backward looking. Others will follow you not because they care about you, but because those choices add up to envisioning a tomorrow’s world of which others want to be part.
Your overriding proactive, optimistic, forward-looking message should guide everything you say and do. It’s not so much that it should be the subject of every talk or the answer to every question as the thing all your talks and answers head towards. Different talks will have different communication points. Different questions will prompt different answers. But they should all add up to your overriding message in interviews and in your conversations before you start, as you start, and as you progress in roles.
Act as the shepherd of tomorrow
At first, no one will really believe what you say. They will believe what you do. Be proactive and optimistic in taking actions that build a future of which people want to be part. Of course, you’re going to react sometimes. Of course, you have to be more practical sometimes. At the same time, be the one looking beyond short-term issues and setbacks to finding ways to turn them into things that are good for all going forward.
Do things others will want to emulate. Do things you’ll want to talk about in interviews. Do things others will want to talk about in describing you to still others. If you do the right thing enough times on a consistent basis in line with your message, people will believe you and your message.
Be the shepherd of tomorrow
However, even if you do what you say but you don’t believe it yourself, eventually you’ll slip up and get caught. You can fool some of the people some of the time over the short-term, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time over time – starting with yourself. Make sure you’re choosing and acting on a message you believe in.
Alexander Pope said “No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday.”
And Darwin is alleged to have said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Putting those two together leads to the inevitable conclusion that you have to keep learning and growing. Your learning, practice, and experience so far have gotten you to today. Shepherding tomorrow is going to require a whole new set of learning, practice, and experience.
This is why people ask you about past mistakes and weaknesses in interviews. It’s a way for them to figure out if you have learned and adapted.
This is why it’s so important to own up to your own failures. It’s a way for others to see that you are prepared to learn and adapt.
Everything communicates. Be. Do. Say.
John Hall
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