CAMBRIDGE: Perhaps the most impressive current example of leadership based on the ability to communicate is Barack Obama, who has given three times as many interviews as George W. Bush and held four times as many prime press conferences as Bill Clinton at this stage in their presidencies. Some critics are now wondering if all this talking is too much of a good thing.
All inspirational leaders communicate effectively. Winston Churchill often attributed his success to his mastery of the English sentence. The ancient Greeks had schools of rhetoric to hone their skills for the assembly. Cicero made his mark in the Roman Senate after studying oratory.
Good rhetorical skills help to generate soft power. Woodrow Wilson was not a gifted student as a child, but he taught himself oratory because he regarded it as essential for leadership. Martin Luther King, Jr. benefited from growing up in an African-American church tradition rich in the rhythms of the spoken word. Clinton was able to combine a sense of theater with narrative stories and an overall ability to convey an argument. According to his staff, he developed and improved this gradually over his career.
Oratory and inspirational rhetoric, however, are not the only forms of communication with which leaders frame issues and create meaning for their followers. Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, was hardly an inspirational speaker, but markets and politicians hung on his every word, and he tailored the nuances of his language to reinforce the direction in which he wanted to lead monetary policy. Unfortunately, as the financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated, it would have been better if Congressional committees had pressed him to communicate more clearly.
Non-verbal signals are also an important component of human communications. Symbols and examples can be very effective. Some inspirational leaders are not great orators – witness Mahatma Gandhi. But the symbolism of Gandhi’s simple dress and lifestyle spoke louder than words.
If one compares those images with pictures of the young insecure Gandhi dressed as a proper British lawyer, one can see how carefully he understood symbolic communication. He ensured that actions such as the famous 1930 salt march to the sea maintained a slow pace that allowed the drama and tension to build. The march was designed for communication, not the ostensible reason of resisting the colonial government’s prohibition on the fabrication of salt. T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia ) also understood how to communicate with symbols. When he went to the Paris Peace Conference at World War I’s end, he wore Bedouin robes to dramatize the Arab cause. A year later, at a Cairo conference that negotiated borders in the region, he changed to a British officer’s uniform as he engaged in hard transactional bargaining. Or, to take a contemporary example, the British entrepreneur Richard Branson overcame dyslexia and poor academic performance by using events and public stunts to promote his Virgin brands.
In addition to communicating with distant audiences, leaders need the ability to communicate one-on-one or in small groups. In some cases, that close communication is more important than public rhetoric.
Organizational skills – the ability to attract and inspire an effective inner circle of followers – can compensate for rhetorical deficiencies, just as effective public rhetoric can partly compensate for low organizational skills. Hitler was skillful at communicating with both distant and inner-circle audiences. Stalin relied primarily on the latter. Harry Truman was a modest orator, but compensated by attracting and ably managing a stellar set of advisers.
A good narrative is a great source of soft power, and the first rule that fiction writers learn about good narrative is to “show, not tell. Franklin Roosevelt used the fictional story of lending a garden hose to a neighbor whose house was on fire to explain his complex lend-lease program to the American people before World War II. Ronald Reagan was a master of the well selected anecdote.
Setting the right example is another crucial form of communication for leaders. Anticipating a skeptical public reaction when Singapore raised the salaries of government officials in 2007, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that he would forgo the raise himself. In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, some business executives voluntarily reduced their salaries as a means of communicating concern for their employees and public opinion.
During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Obama proved to be a talented communicator. Not only was his rhetorical style effective, but after inflammatory comments by his pastor threatened to derail his campaign, he produced one of the best speeches on race in America since the days of King.
As president, Obama continues to communicate effectively, but an American president has a problem of dual audiences. Sometimes rhetoric that fares well at home – such as Bush’s second inaugural address – sounds hypocritical to foreign ears. In contrast, Obama’s inaugural address was well received both at home and abroad.
In a series of foreign-policy speeches, most notably one delivered in Cairo and addressed to the Muslim world, polls show that Obama has been able to restore some of America’s soft power. So far, so good, but effective leadership is also communicated by actions and policies. At this stage, it is too early to determine whether Obama’s policies will reinforce or undercut the effects of his words. As we await the results, it helps to remember the complexity of the relation between effective leadership and communications.
Joseph S. Nye, Jr.is University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard and author of The Powers to Lead. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with Project Syndicate, (www.project-syndicate.org).
