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If Your People Are Leaking Bad News About You, What Does It Say About Your Ability to Inspire Trust?

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Nicole Wallace is a long-time political operative. On her show Deadline: White House on MSNBC, Wallace said that she worked on two presidential campaigns. One campaign for George W. Bush won; the other campaign for John McCain lost. Wallace says a difference between the winning and losing campaigns was the leaks.

First, let’s define leaking, which is something of a sport in political circles. All campaigns leak. Typically, staffers leak positive news about their candidates: favorable polls, emerging endorsement or new campaign policies. Even candidates themselves leak on background, of course. Such leaks are part of the political process, and candidates welcome them.

There is another kind of leak—the back-biting kind. This is where news of a candidates’ vulnerabilities—miscues, foibles, and flip-flops—are told by staffers who have become disenchanted by the candidate. Sometimes leaks come from rivalries among staffers. Rivals will leak unfavorable information to make a fellow staffer look bad, and in the process elevate their own status, or so they think.

What these leaks illustrate are the two faces of loyalty. In the former, it’s a commitment to a candidate they embrace. That’s loyalty. In the latter, it’s disengagement from such a candidate. That’s disloyalty.

All leaders want loyalty, but only the less confident ones expect it. Loyalty can never truly be an expectation because loyalty is something that is earned through example. Loyalty is a by-product of trust. “If a man asks me for my loyalty…I will give him my honesty,” wrote legendary Air Force pilot and military strategist John Boyd. “If a man asks me for my honesty...I will give him my loyalty!”

Just as you cannot say, “trust me,” to a stranger (unless you sell used cars), trust develops when the boss shows that he is worthy of being trusted. That is, he or she follows through on promises and in the process shows support for people to who work for him or her.

You can be loyal to someone who treats you right, but it is hard to believe in someone who does not have your back, someone who when things go wrong, either abandons you or throws you under the bus.

Loyalty, however, is not always altruistic. Mobsters may be loyal to one another, united in crime and blood. And likewise, a likable boss whom you think is trustworthy engages in unethical conduct, then that person does not merit your loyalty, even if he may be square with you personally.

When staffers feel betrayed by a position, their boss has taken, and as a result, they feel disenchanted. The honorable thing to do would be to quit, but some act out through leaking negative information. “Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right,” wrote Abraham Lincoln. “But, leave him when he is wrong.”

In a broader sense, such disloyalty, or lack of enthusiasm among staffers, is worrisome because it indicates that no matter how appealing a candidate may be in public, he or she lacks the loyalty of staffers. That is a sign of poor management. A candidate who cannot manage a campaign properly—when he or she controls the hiring--seems hardly worthy of being elected to office. Public officials must work with people they did not hire. If managing people is not a strong suit, then their ability to lead may be compromised.

Now that we are in the presidential campaign season, as time goes on, we will see those candidates who run a tight ship, and those who are continually bailing bilge water. The loyalty of staff can keep winners afloat.

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