When Kenneth Starr, a New York financial advisor to celebrities, was arrested for an alleged $30 million fraud last month, police entering his apartment found him hiding under a pile of clothes in a closet.
Mr. Starr, please meet Rod R. Blagojevich, a kindred spirit when it comes to dealing with adversity.
Testimony in his trial reveals that the former Illinois governor wasn’t big on bad news, either, hiding in a bathroom when his budget director was on his way to discuss the state’s complex, debt-filled fiscal status.
There is a lesson to be learned: if you’re a coward, at least opt for hot and cold running water, as did Blago.
As a self-styled student of American history, Mr. Blagojevich would have a hard time comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy or even Gerald Ford when it comes to dealing with duress.
Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt showed inspiring ample moral courage in the face of difficulty, especially war. J.F.K. faced up to, and took responsibility for, the botched Bay of Pigs invasion (his poll ratings rose as a result). Mr. Ford faced the tricky pardon of his humiliated predecessor, Richard Nixon, with grace and nerve.
On the personal side, as historian Richard Norton Smith pointed out, Lincoln responded to the 1862 death of his son by taking an hour of private time each Thursday (the day he died), mourning and finding solace in reading Shakespearean tragedies. The death, which devastated his wife, arguably transformed him by linking him to all those who had lost sons in the war.
Before he became president, Mr. Norton noted, Teddy Roosevelt famously suffered the death of his mother and wife on the same day. He quit politics and headed to the exotic Badlands to heal, coming back less the patrician he had been and more the democratic hero he would become.
On the other hand, some presidents were given to Blago-like avoidance. After surgery for colon cancer, Ronald Reagan actually declared, “I didn’t have cancer. Something inside of me that had cancer in it, and it was removed.”
David Greenberg, a historian at Rutgers University, cited how President Nixon erupted at his aides who brought him bad news. “And all of them — Henry Kissinger, H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman,” he said, “became fawning yes-men.”
The Nixon culture is akin to the fawning, intellectually dishonest culture revealed in the Blagojevich trial. It’s probably not unusual throughout most institutions, especially at the highest levels of corporate America.
James B. Stewart, a terrific financial journalist and author, finds top executives for whom there’s no bad news. They are the “power of positive thinking” people, with the glass never half empty. However, there are those who “ignore it, or discourage people from ever telling them,” he said. “They go into denial. There are lots of these people.”
The ones known for confronting and dealing with bad news in an honest manner include Jack Welch, the retired General Electric boss. But people like that are in the minority.
A great tale about leadership comes via Robert Monks and Nell Minow, who started Lens Investment Management — a self-styled “activist investor” — and The Corporate Library, a corporate governance research firm. It involves Mr. Monks’ self-nominated, 1991 candidacy for the board of directors at Sears Roebuck back when, well, Sears was Sears.
For Mr. Monks and Ms. Minow, Sears epitomized corporate arrogance and aloofness to shareholders. The late Edward A. Brennan, notes Ms. Minow, was not just chief executive and chairman of the board but chief executive of retail operations, the company’s “worst performing division, reporting to himself.” He chaired the nominating committee that picked board members, and was a trustee for the employee stock plan.
“It was like making Obama president, chief justice of the Supreme Court, Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House,” Ms. Minow said.
Mr. Monks’ candidacy failed, but not before he got a meeting with Mr. Brennan. He was met in the lobby of the then-Sears Tower by a top official, who would escort him to Mr. Brennan’s office. Mr. Monks recalled for his biographer a tense elevator ride and, finally, the executive breaking the silence as the elevator doors opened.
“This is the first time bad news has gotten above the 77th floor,” he said.
For all of Mr. Brennan’s faults, at least he did not flee to a bathroom.
