 You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. Our program will emphasize conservation. The amount of energy being wasted, which could be saved, is greater than the total energy that we are importing from foreign countries. Opportunity is our engine of progress, so I'm asking Congress to work with me and not against me to control federal spending, to pass our fair share tax plan, lowering rates further, open up closed markets overseas, and urge other nations to cut their high tax rates to strengthen their economies and ability to buy American products. Saddam Hussein's unprovoked invasion, his ruthless, systematic rape of a peaceful neighbor violated everything the community of nations holds dear. The world has said this aggression would not stand, and it will not stand. Hello and welcome to our program. I'm Michael Burney, and today I'll be facilitating a discussion about what we can learn from the most important leadership setting, the American presidency. I'm joined today in another part of our studio by our resident leadership expert, Dr. Michael Siegel. Michael, welcome. Hello, Michael. I'm excited to be here and help our audience make connections between the leadership challenges faced by three American presidents and their own leadership challenges in the courts. Should be fun. Good. Now, to keep Michael grounded in the realities of federal court administration, we've invited two court leaders here today. I'm pleased to introduce Ms. Betsy Paray, clerk of court of the United States District Court, Virginia Eastern and Alexandria, and Mr. Ted Johnson, the chief U.S. probation and pretrial services officer for the Western District of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh. We also have courts who will be participating with us on Push to Talk, and we'll look forward to hearing from you. Here's how we'll proceed. First, Michael will make brief introductory comments about the administrations of the three past U.S. presidents. He'll talk about the potentials and limitations of presidential power. Then he'll portray four specific dimensions of effective presidential leadership and relate those to the administrations of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush Sr. After each president we analyze, there'll be time for questions from our Push to Talk sites. Then, with the help of our guests, we'll draw out the implications of those lessons to the federal judiciary. Okay, let's take a look at the specific objectives for our program. If you have the note-taking guide, please turn to page three. The primary goal of this program is to help federal court managers and leaders improve their leadership capacity in four specific areas, policy or vision, the ability to enunciate a clear vision or set of goals, and explain it to others in an effective manner. Politics or strategy, the skills needed to implement one's vision to influence others and build coalitions for change. Structure or management, the design skills needed to set up an effective organizational structure and manage operations in a smooth manner. Process or decision-making, the ability to actively listen to opposing viewpoints and make a clear decision and the ability to resolve conflicts among staff. Okay, that's what we'll be covering. And all sites, please feel free to fax in your questions at any time. We'll get to as many as we can during the question-and-answer session. Finally, a heads-up to our push-to-talk sites. I'll be asking you to tell us what you remember about each of the presidents we discuss. So start thinking about that. Okay, now, back to you, Michael. Thanks, Michael. When they created the Office of the Presidency, the Founding Fathers had their fingers crossed according to presidential scholar Louis Koenig in his book, The Chief Executive. The reason they had their fingers crossed was that they did not want to recreate a monarchy in the young republic, and yet they wanted to invest the Office with energy, as Alexander Hamilton said. Well, if they wanted energy in the executive branch, energy is what they got. The Office has evolved from that point to be what many consider, as Michael mentioned, the most important leadership position in the world. And yet people who have served in that Office see it quite differently. A frustrated Lyndon Johnson once said, the only power I have is nuclear, and I can't use it. Writing about Eisenhower Truman said, poor Ike, he'll say, do this, do that, and no one will do a thing. It won't be a bit like the Army. And even in the judiciary, there was Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit. Judge Merritt mentioned, or made the comment, when they handed me the reins of power, nobody told me there was nothing attached to the reins. So great positions have great frustrations, great constraints. The Office of the Presidency has great constraints. Consider the U.S. Congress, consider the institutions that we work for, the U.S. courts as a constraint on presidential power. Consider the interest groups and the media. Many other constraints and limitations on presidential power exist. The question then becomes, how does a president or really any leader lead effectively in spite of the constraints? And the answer, in my opinion, is by mastering four components of leadership. And I'm going to briefly describe these components, illustrate them, and then, as Michael mentioned, we will apply this analysis to three recent U.S. presidents. The first component of leadership is policy. Policy is vision. Vision is purpose. What's your purpose? Where do you want to take the country? What's your goal for the country in the next four years? When he decided to challenge Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1980, Senator Teddy Kennedy was interviewed by Roger Mudd. And Mr. Mudd asked him a very reasonable question, which was, Senator, why do you want to be president? And here's Kennedy's answer, and I quote verbatim. Uh, uh, uh, he couldn't answer the question. He hadn't thought about it. Of course he should be president. He's a Kennedy. He's a very powerful U.S. senator. But credentials and reputation are not enough. You need a vision. Warren Bennett said the first ingredient of leadership is a guiding vision. In order to have leadership, you need vision. Some of the great organizations know this. Nordstrom Department Store has a vision. Their vision is world-class customer service. You feel it when you walk in there. The salespeople are anxious to help you, and they make you feel like the most important person in the world. That's what we call vision. Federal Express had a vision. Get the package there the next day. It's not very lofty, but it's very powerful. John Kennedy had a vision when he said we're going to send a man to the moon and bring him back to the earth before the decade is out. We had no capacity to do it, and yet because the president laid out a vision, we rallied, we organized our resources, and committed to the accomplishment of that goal. Excuse me. The next step in leadership, in my opinion, is politics. Politics is strategy. Politics is about how are you going to implement your vision. Mario Cuomo once said, you can campaign in poetry, but you must govern in prose. This is the details of delivery. This is how you're going to implement your vision. Who are you going to get to help you? How will you influence the Congress if you're the president of the United States? How will you persuade your own executive branch of two million people? What's your strategy? When she was a provost at Stanford University, Dr. Condoleezza Rice said, you can have a vision, but if you can't get it done, it's nothing. It may be elegant and beautiful on paper, but if you can't get it done, it never happened. So you need to have a strategy of implementation. Many corporate executives, in addition to government officials, fail because they cannot execute their vision. They cannot make things happen, and this is the second very important ingredient of leadership. Third, in my opinion, is structure. Structure is a management question. Structure is the question of, how are you going to organize the White House? Will you have a chief of staff, for example? Or will you, like Jimmy Carter, decide not to have a chief of staff? In the courts, will you have a chief deputy or not? Very important question, and a leader needs to very deliberately make this decision because it is a critical decision. Will you have an open or closed operation? Richard Nixon had a very closed operation. His own cabinet secretaries could not get in to see him for a year and a half according to then HUD secretary George Romney because they were intercepted by Haldeman and Ehrlichman. That's called a closed operation. Many managers say, I have an open door policy. One of the questions I have is, when was the last time anyone ever walked through that door and what happened to the last person who did? So you have to, again, think about these things very carefully. Be very deliberate in your structure and management decisions. And finally, there is a question of process. Process is decision making. How are you going to make and announce decisions? How are you going to handle conflict? And will you build in diversity into your administration? I believe these four components of leadership are essential to analyze the President of the United States and any other leader in current organizations. Let's take a moment to check in with our court leaders before we begin analyzing specific presidents. What would be the relevance of the concepts that Michael has discussed to work in a probation and pretrial services office? Michael, I think what we're talking about is managing change, moving from where we are today to our goal, where we want to be in developing a strategy to navigate from point A to point B. Today's budget has really forced us to look at reorganization and, in my case, merger of pretrial probation. So my goal has really been set by the court. We're going to go from two agencies to one. Three key elements, the next step is to develop a strategy. Three key elements to making a strategy and they're different for every instance. But the three key elements I see are one, listing and prioritizing your tasks. Two, and most importantly, is using staff not only to work towards that goal but in the planning of the strategy. And three, constantly monitoring your strategy, making adjustments when needed and maybe even changing that strategy if it's not working for you. But the most important of those three elements is to use the staff, make sure everybody's going in the same direction. And Betsy, how would those ideas apply in the U.S. District Court? Well, the two remaining concepts, structure and process, apply perfectly. Structure is all about surrounding yourself with good people. And these are people who have different skills and different abilities and talents than you. So if you're a big picture leader, make sure you've got people who are detail oriented. And if you're an optimist, make sure you've got some pessimists. And a perfect example of my organization is we plan an annual clerk's office meeting. And it's outdoors, it's a ropes program where you're doing team building activities. And in my mind, it's always a beautiful spring day, the sun is shining, it's warm, it's comfortable and people are having a great time. In my training coordinator's mind, it's rainy, windy and cold. So I don't worry about, you know, what is going to happen just knowing that Hillary is going to make sure everything is taken care of. There's backup plans, there's a contingency plan and the day is going to go off out of hitch. But again, she's a compliment to my sort of the big picture, her following up the details, my optimism and her defense of pessimism. The second part is process. And it's all about decision making, conflict resolution and making sure you're getting the information that you need to make the best decisions possible. So it means going out and getting information from as many people as you can. And if you don't feel like you're getting the information that you need, for example, from your managers and supervisors, then go ahead and talk to your front line folks and go ahead and talk to the newest person in the office as well as the more seasoned people in the office. But don't spend too much time gathering information. You always need to keep in mind that there are some decisions that need to be made quickly and some decisions that take time and the involvement of many, many stakeholders, including, of course, the judges. Thanks Betsy and Ted. Those are great insights. Now let's turn to our president starting with Jimmy Carter. But first, let's check in with our push-to-talk sites. What do you remember about the administration of President Carter? And don't tell me that none of you were born in 1976. Wasn't it Carter that gave federal employees a 10% raise? That's right. That's right. Just encourage the push-to-talk sites to dial in later. We'll have a chance to ask you what you remember about the administrations of Ronald Reagan and also George Bush Sr. Let's turn back to Michael now for his observations. Thanks Michael. We are going to talk now about the administration of Jimmy Carter and I want to be sure that I distinguish at the front end the difference between Carter as a president, which is the focus of my analysis today, and Carter as a post-president, a great humanitarian who has recently been honored worldwide and who deserves all of these accolades because of his great humanitarian efforts. My focus here today, however, is on his years in the White House. And in this regard, I find several things to be critical of and I want to elaborate them according to my own framework. In terms of policy or vision, and I like Ted's idea of going from point A to point B, because that really is what vision is all about. Well, the campaign of Jimmy Carter really started in large respect from a memo he received from Patrick Caddell. Patrick Caddell is a pollster in Cambridge, Massachusetts who advises the program called the West Wing or as some of my students like to call it the left wing. In any case, Mr. Caddell wrote Jimmy Carter a memo in 1975 in which he said, Mr. Carter, the people are sick and tired of Watergate. They're fearful of presidents who lie, who create enemies' lists, who wield power without any regard for the Constitution, and they are looking for a good, honest man of integrity. And Mr. Carter, you are the man. Well, Jimmy Carter read this memo and he said, this sounds pretty good. The story goes, in fact, that he called his mother and he said, Ma, I've decided to run for president. And the response was, president of what, Jimmy? Excuse me, Michael. This is the term of your first issue, policy or vision. Is it fair to say that Carter had none? Michael, I think it is fair to say that. He campaigned on a broad theme. He was really trying to position himself as the anti-Nixon, if you will. He was not going to be that kind of president. He was going to be a man of honesty and integrity and a humble man. And as we can see now if we look at a clip, Jimmy Carter, as he walked down Pennsylvania Avenue on the day of his inauguration, this was a very deliberate attempt by Carter to show that he was not an imperial president, to show that he was willing to avoid the writing and the limousine that every president before him had done on the day of inauguration and that he was a common man who was going to serve the people in a humble fashion. Basically, he ran on defining what he was not. He was not a power-hungry megalomaniac. He was not an imperial president. But he wasn't that good in telling us what he was. In telling us what he was. He was better in telling us what he was not than what he was. And in the wake of Watergate, the people were quite receptive to the message that he was different from Richard Nixon. Some organizations sometime will choose a leader. If a leader has fallen, they will choose that leader's exact opposite. And if they're better than looking at what's really right for the organization, they will go to that leader's exact opposite. This is, in a sense, what the American people did by electing Jimmy Carter. And I believe, along with my colleague, Dr. Mark Siegel, who served in the Carter White House, that he campaigned on a thematic campaign, broad themes, honesty and integrity, as opposed to a programmatic campaign. I will cut taxes. I will increase defense spending, whatever it is. Betsy, what do you think about the importance of discussing vision with your judges and or staff? Critically important. But the key to it is using words that works best for a particular audience. So for judges, vision sort of became overused during the 90s and similar to paradigm shift. So sometimes judges will just kind of stop listening if you use the V word. So you can use terms like objectives, priorities, goals. And that works well. With staff, they understand vision and you can use those words and phrases. But the key to vision is actually, if you say you have an open door policy, have an open door policy. If you say you want input from everyone, you really should and do that. You have to have, you know, like to receive feedback. And if you're gonna say that you're gonna do things and you believe things, then make sure you do it. Because talk is cheap. And you might have the greatest vision ever written and laminated on cards or something. But if you don't do it, you lose your credibility and you lose any chance at all to succeed in the organization as a whole. Ted? I agree with Betsy. Setting goals is critical. I mean, we do that. It's part of everyday life. From the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to sleep, we're setting long-term goals, short-term goals, educational goals, financial goals. When we reach those goals, we feel good about ourselves. We feel like we've accomplished something when we buy our first house or when we graduate. Paul de Paulito, a manager in my office when discussing this issue with him, said, life without goals is like being on a treadmill and going nowhere fast. And I pretty much agree with him. Imagine being in jail, getting up, eating, existing, going to bed, getting up, eating, existing and going to bed. Same holds true for the workplace. Employees need something to work for, need something to feel good about, a plateau to reach to measure their success. If you have them and you use them and use their talents, you're all going in the same direction to reach that same goal. Now, the office goals are important, but individual goals are also important. I think it's important for a leader or a chief to also understand that the individual employees have goals and it's our responsibility to know that, to sit down, where does that employee want to be in a year? Where do they want to be in five years and 10 years? Do they want to be a DQA? Do they want to be supervisors, specialists? Do they want to take my place as chief? And if that's the case, I think that we need to give them that opportunity. If they're going to help you work towards your goal, you need to help them work towards theirs. Your second area of leadership performance relates to politics or what you call strategy. How would you describe Carter's politics? I can think of a lot of words to use about Carter's politics. None of them particularly flattering. Perhaps the best way to get at it is to ask you, I know you like movies. You remember a 1972 movie called The Candidate? Sure, that was the one that was starring Robert Redford. That's right, Michael. It was Robert Redford who starred as Bill McKay, a political candidate who really did not know why he was running for office. He was a very attractive political candidate who was managed by savvy political consultants, the Carl Roves of their day. And through very hard work and clever electioneering, they got him elected. And in the last line of the movie, the candidate turns to the political consultant and he says, now what do we do? With some measure of exaggeration, the same movie could be written about Jimmy Carter. Because he did not have a vision, because he had not outlined goals, as Ted and Betsy have described them. His staff were really uninformed. They were unfocused. In fact, they spent the first days of the Carter years, the very first days of the administration. They sat around the Roosevelt Room and they were arguing about who should lead the first meeting. And Bob Lipschitz said, well, I should lead the first meeting because I'm the oldest. And Hamilton Jordan came in and said, no, maybe it should be me. And Jody Powell, they were all arguing about who should lead the first meeting. They had not a clue as to what the policy objectives were of the new administration. If we contrast this, for example, with Ronald Reagan's early days, his staff, specifically David Stockman, who would be his budget director, was already running around Capitol Hill with budget books, negotiating the budget changes they would introduce with Capitol Hill leaders before the inauguration. This is called having a vision and having a plan. And this is what leaders need to do. And this is what leaders need to transmit to staff, their goals, their objectives, and what they really want done. On top of this, Carter brought to Washington people who were really not Washington experienced. In fact, he campaigned on the basis of being a Washington outsider. A lot of other candidates have done that since, by the way. And it doesn't serve you well once you are in Washington to be a Washington outsider. For instance, Carter brought designated as his chief of congressional liaison, the man who would sell his program to Congress, a position that has existed in the White House ever since the Truman administration. He appointed a man named Frank Moore, who had never been to Capitol Hill. And they had to drive Frank Moore around and say, Mr. Moore, here are the Senate office buildings and here are the House office buildings. That sounds surprising for a president. Indeed it is. It shows you a kind of a lack of familiarity with Washington and a lack of familiarity with the way things get done in Washington. I want to also build on the point about his lack of familiarity with the important aspect of presidential leadership, which is persuasion. Richard Neustadt, the presidential expert, once said, the only power a president really has is the power to persuade. Now I want to set up a situation where Jimmy Carter did try to make a persuasive speech. And in fact, he did it rather well, and we're going to look at it in a minute. But he undervalued the importance of what persuasion really means. So let's drop in now on a speech that Jimmy Carter gave at the height of the energy crisis. On April the 20th, we will have completed the planning for our energy program and will immediately then ask the Congress for its help in enacting comprehensive legislation. Our program will emphasize conservation. The amount of energy being wasted, which could be saved, is greater than the total energy that we are importing from foreign countries. Now he made a very wonderful speech, and you saw he even had dressed himself to reinforce the message of personal sacrifice. We've lowered the thermostats in the White House. We're all going to have to make sacrifice. And I'm calling on the American people to make sacrifices. And by the way, I have introduced two energy bills to Congress, and I'd like your support, he was saying, to Congress. Well, Jimmy Carter's speech ended. And by the way, he was in a sense trying to emulate FDR and the fireside chats going directly to the American people. But of course, Congress is always a very important secondary audience or maybe primary audience. Five minutes after the speech, Jimmy Carter's phone rings. Who is it? It's Tip O'Neill, the Speaker of the House. And in his Massachusetts accent he says, Mr. Carter, that was a great speech. Now I want you to get on the phone and call every member of every committee, every chair of every committee, where your bill is going to go and lobby for your bill. And here is Carter's response. And here is an example of leadership and aptitude, in my opinion. Carter responded to Tip O'Neill, I don't have to call them, they heard the speech. I don't know about you, but most people I know are not persuaded by speeches. They are persuaded by one-on-one lobbying, as Bill Clinton understood when he personally lobbied 100 members of Congress on the China trade bill. Betsy, let's look at this for a minute and let me ask you, how do you persuade people in your office? It's a lot of talking, a lot of lobbying, a lot of listening, and a lot of sharing information. And we had a recent situation in our Alexandria division where we noticed that the civil docket clerks were just always overwhelmed with work. Whereas the criminal docket clerks had a situation where the work would spike, but then there would be a lull, it would spike and there would be a lull. Well, the work just wasn't equalized. And it was a big problem. I had lots of people coming to talk to me, saying we just can't keep up this pace and we need to do something. Well, it would have been easy for me to give a speech and say this is what we need to do, but I knew I would be unsuccessful in getting everybody to buy in. So we had group meetings, we had individual meetings, and in the end what we ended up doing was everybody was given certain tasks, research assignments, and they were calling other courts, getting information, how is it done in your court, and we found out that we were one of the few district courts that still had an old-fashioned civil section, criminal section, that most district courts had already gone to cross-training and everybody carried a civil criminal number. So to the people who said, gosh, we've been doing it this way for 215 years, who are you to change it? That was sort of eye-opening to them. And again, it was talking to the people who wanted the change, it was talking to the people who didn't want the change, and that was one of the most important elements of making this process work. And it was listening and understanding why there was reluctance to change and trying to work within those parameters to try and get a better sense of, how can we make this work, knowing that there are going to be some emotional issues that we need to address as well? And it's also baby steps. I mean, we took our time. We never said, you know, at the beginning, we know what the answer is. We didn't know. We really took it slow. We did a lot of research. And by the end of it, everybody was on board. And in fact, the most vocal opponents are now the ones who are most vocally supportive, saying, I never thought in my 22 years with the court that I would never work, but this is the best it's ever been. So you've got to go out. You've got to do the work. You've got to talk to people. You've got to listen. But it's gradual. And you need to know that going into the beginning and listen to the people who actually do the work because they're the ones who are going to come up with the best solution and a better solution that I would come up with on my own. Ted, can you describe the strategies you use to influence staff, especially around change? What we need to do is to be realistic about the change and to clearly show them through relevant and current information why the change is needed. The most important thing again is to get feedback from the staff. Don't force-feed them. Again, what we're saying is seek advice, ask questions, and not just advice from inside the office but from outside the office. When we were going through merger, I called Atlanta and Maryland. They had already gone through it. Let's not reinvent the wheel. I called New Jersey for finances and Joe Jacoby in New York because he already had a combined office. Utilize what you have. The FJC Center. Kate Lyon had told me and made me realize that combining the two offices, pretrial and probation, that they were two different offices and not to try to make the probation office a pretrial office to keep that individuality. I think just asking for help is key so that the officers and the staff can see that it has worked in other areas and that it will work in our office. Okay, Michael, back to you. Yeah, I want to pick up on a couple of points that both Betsy and Ted made. That persuasion is a dialogue, not a monologue. That in persuading people, you can also learn from them. And if we go back to the energy bill for a minute, Carter should have realized that what's a good energy bill for California is not a good energy bill for Oklahoma. And he needs to learn from the different members and their constituencies how to mold a bill that will meet everybody's needs in the end. There's another dimension of the persuasion index where I think Carter fell short. And this is an anecdote recounted by Bob Woodward in the news lately, of course, for his recent book on Iraq. But in this case, he wrote a book called Shadow, which was an analysis of five recent presidents. And he talked about Jimmy Carter and a tennis game. Carter had a bit of a proclivity to be a micro manager. And among the areas he supervised included the strategic arms limitations treaty, the Middle East peace, and the White House tennis courts. Well, he scheduled, by the way, a supervisor recently told me that he was spending 75% on his time on parking issues. I said, that sounds a little high. In any case, Carter scheduled a tennis game and invited Senator Lloyd Benson to play, along with some other people. They played a game of tennis or two, and then the senators were sent home. And Lloyd Benson was quite surprised. He said, you know, even a U.S. senator doesn't have that many opportunities for one-on-one time with a president. It's quite unusual, and it's a lost opportunity. I can't persuade him. He can't persuade me. So Benson actually called the White House, and he said he expressed his concern, and the answer that came back was, the president thought you'd want to go home and spend time with your families. Well, in general, this is good advice. However, in this particular case, it's the loss of a golden opportunity. A one-on-one meeting with a higher-up, senators don't call anybody bosses, I guess, but with a subordinate, with a boss or even a colleague, is an invaluable opportunity for them to influence you and for you to influence them. A recent demonstration of the importance of this concept of one-on-one time comes from yet another book by Bob Woodward, Bush Goes to War, where he talks about the intervention of Colin Powell. When Colin Powell heard that both Cheney and Rumsfeld were having one-on-one dinners with President Bush, this was before the Iraq War, and he was not. He intervened through Condoleezza Rice, and he assured himself a one-on-one audience with the president. It is felt by many that the only reason we even tried the diplomatic route in Iraq was because Powell had forced himself to have one-on-one time with President Bush. Excuse me, Michael, I'd like to hear from our panelists on one-on-one time. One-on-one time for me is really key. Not everyone is comfortable expressing themselves in an open form or in large crowds. Anyone in my office will tell you that I spend probably more time in other offices than I do on my own. This is a time when you can learn more about each individual. You're going to get some of your best ideas. You're going to be able to ask them how you're doing, how do they feel that, you know, the office is going. You'll get to learn a little bit more about that employee. What's really interesting about one-on-one time, however, is it gives me time to further debate and persuade those pessimists in my office and those people who are on the border. They're not quite sure that they're, you know, what to do with your ideas. It also gives you time to strengthen your allies. What Betsy was talking about, open door, I think that's another time when one-on-one is important. Truly have an open door. Truly invite officers or employees to knock on that door and to ask questions. Anything, nothing's off limits. What that does is it sort of limits the rumor and innuendo that generally goes around, you know, at the water cooler where people are trying to second-guess what's going to happen. If they can hear it from the horse's mouth, that's a good thing. As a new clerk, almost three years ago, I made it a point to have one-on-one meetings with as many of my staff as I could. And to those of you I haven't met with, I'm coming. But one of the things that was important and I learned right away is that you learn a whole different perspective about the organization from other people than you will ever learn on your own. And I learned also about all these skills and talents that people had that never had been tapped also became very clear, sort of the underutilized people, the overutilized people and places where we needed to sort of restructure, reorganize to take full advantage of everybody's talents. The other thing is take advantage of sort of the social activities. I mean happy hours, you know, baseball games, events that are organized for the organization. I mean the things that you pick up are invaluable and of course you're not talking about work the whole time, but you do get to learn more about people and what's important to them and their values and sort of where they fit in to the whole scheme of the organization. And I guess the last idea, and it's been really critically important to me, is go to lunch with staff. I mean eat lunch in the lunch room. I went out with a group of folks in my Norfolk office and it was great. We had this fabulous time at a Mexican restaurant. We didn't drink margaritas or anything, but we did. I mean one of my staff said, you know, I've been here 20 years and this is the first time I ever ate lunch with a clerk. Well, you know, be accessible and listen to people informally as well as formally. Okay, Michael, speaking of equal time, let's finish up with President Carter so we can give equal time to the other presidents. Indeed, Michael. We'll do that. One more word about politics before we move to the third variable of structure. Among the other problems that Carter had in his politics area was the lack of prioritization. Jimmy Carter really had an engineer's mind and he was really into details and he really was what's called in today's world a policy wonk. The problem is he didn't prioritize the issue so he was involved at the presidential level in 35 issues at the same time. Everything from hospital cost containment to Middle East peace. Now, I suggest to you and I suggest to leaders and managers in every sector including the federal courts that to be involved as a chief executive in 35 issues at the same time is impractical. It's going to drain your energy. You're never going to sleep and I doubt that you're going to be able to accomplish 35 things equally well. I once compared it to trying to take 35 college courses at the same time. I'm sure there are some people who could do it but most of us could not. Now let's move into structure. Let's look at Jimmy Carter's ideas about structure because I think in many ways his ideas about structure go back to his theme that I mentioned earlier his attempt to be a non-imperial president and so we saw him walking down Pennsylvania Avenue. He got rid of a lot of the perks of office not only himself but his staff. He enrolled his daughter in public school. He would not let them play believe it or not. He would not let them play hail to the chief when he walked into a room. He was so determined to be a common man that he would not let them play that song and his media advisor Gerald Raffchun a year and a half later begged him, begged him to let them play hail to the chief when they see the president he said, Mr. President, people like to hear that music when the president arrives. And so he did all he could to de-imperialize the office. He was not going to have a chief of staff. He felt that that was too imperial. He had read a book by Stephen Hess called Organizing the Presidency in which Stephen Hess talked about a spokes of the wheel operation with the president in the middle and all these spokes radiating in and that was the kind of the model he was working with. It was chaotic, it didn't work and it was overwhelming. So I would say it was too loose and it needed more structure. The final area is process and in process we find a very interesting example in the Carter White House particularly in foreign policy. Now to staff his foreign policy operation Carter chose two people who could not be more opposite. His secretary of state was Cyrus Vance an experienced Wall Street lawyer very calm, collected person to whom anything is negotiable. His national security advisor on the other hand was Zbigniew Brzezinski who had left Poland when the Soviet tanks rolled in in 1956 and he was a more emotional person had very strong feelings about the Soviet Union. Not everything was negotiable. Now every time a foreign policy issue came up for Jimmy Carter his top two deputies were at total opposite ends of the issue Vance on one and Brzezinski on the other. So if you have a good boss and your two top aides are always disagreeing I think you have a few choices. You could fire one of them I guess you could hear them both out and then choose as our current president does but not of your Jimmy Carter. What Jimmy Carter tried to do was to blend both positions into one and he ended up with what analysts call schizophrenic foreign policy pronouncements. They were basically half Vance, half Brzezinski who couldn't make up his mind until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan then finally Carter decided Brzezinski had been right and he actually went toward a more hard line foreign policy at that point. So Michael in summary what would you say about the administration of Jimmy Carter and what can our court managers learn from his experience. Michael that's a fair question and I don't want to leave the impression that Jimmy Carter did not have some very significant accomplishments he did. After all this was the man that was able to bring about a peace treaty between two erstwhile enemies Israel and Egypt. Let's take a look now for a moment at a clip from Camp David where we see Jimmy Carter with Anwar Sadat the president of Egypt and with Menachem Begin who was the prime minister of Israel. He worked very hard he mediated the conflict and he got a peace treaty which you see them celebrating at the White House. This was a very significant accomplishment and both Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat said that it would not have happened without Jimmy Carter's mediation efforts. In terms of our institution the federal judiciary Jimmy Carter appointed more women and minorities to the bench than any other president. He took the caps off of education loan programs. He did a lot of good things but I guess my point is he could have done a lot more because remember he had a clear vision had he understood the hard work and details of persuasion had he set up an efficient and nimble White House operation and had he understood how to build in conflict but still make very strong decisions. I believe he would have been a much more effective president. Okay Michael let's move on to our next president Ronald Reagan but first let me ask our court leaders what they remember about the administration of Ronald Reagan and here we're talking about two terms 1981 through 1989. Star Wars comes to mind the assassination attempt of the president. Laying off of the air traffic controllers. That's right. Michael can you start us with Ronald Reagan's administration? I can Michael thank you. In terms of context let us remember that as I said before people who are sometimes perceived as people's opposites win and in this case I believe that Ronald Reagan was perceived as Jimmy Carter's opposite where Carter was seen as weak and vacillating one member of Congress described Jimmy Carter as having both feet firmly planted in midair. Reagan was seen as decisive and resolute where Carter was seen as unable to pull off even a minor military operation with a reliable defense advocate who would use force if he needed it. He was very strong, very resolute very decisive and unequivocal in his beliefs. Now on policy it's fair to say I believe that Ronald Reagan was consistent. He was a consistent advocate of the conservative agenda and he had been a consistent advocate of this agenda ever since 1964 when he was heavily involved in the Barry Goldwater campaign. He identified four chief variables or four chief pillars of his policy and he consistently articulated them. They were cut taxes, cut social welfare spending, increased defense spending and deal with the moral and ethical decline of America. It didn't matter what audience he went before, it didn't matter what part of the country he spoke in he would say the same things and he was unequivocal in his beliefs and I think people respect who have convictions even if they don't agree with all of them and of course the other magnificent quality that Reagan had as long as he had his cue cards I would add is that he was the great communicator. Let's take a look now at a press conference with Ronald Reagan. Good evening, please be seated. I have a a statement here. We've been pleased to see mounting evidence of new strength in our economy. By following policies of lower taxes and free and fair trade America has led the world with 33 straight months of growth and more than 8 million new jobs. Inflation has been held under 4 percent and meanwhile nations clinging to high taxes and protectionist policies have not only failed to match our performance they've lost jobs and seen their investment flow to the United States. Opportunity is our engine of progress so I'm asking Congress to work with me and not against me to control federal spending to pass our fair share tax plan lowering rates further open up closed markets overseas and urge other nations to cut their high tax rates to strengthen their economies and ability to buy American products. And so there we see the great communicator at work and he was convincing in fact he was able to bring disparate constituencies together under what he called the Big Tent because people who believed in free trade and laissez-faire economics may not be in agreement with the people who had the conservative agenda of the religious right and yet Reagan was able to bring all these people together and to unite them in a coalition. He was very effective and he also surrounded himself with very professional people people that did know Washington. As we'll see in a second we'll see some of the closest aids that Reagan worked with and we'll see for example in a meeting with Jim Baker who was his chief of staff Ed Meese his counselor to the president and Mike Dever all of whom he had a great deal of respect for and all of whom he delegated authority to and they were very clear on what the president's objectives were because they were so clear on what the president's objectives were they did not have to sit around and guess what he wanted accomplished they knew with a very clear mind what the objectives were and what the goals were and so they went forward and they lobbied congress in addition to them there was as I mentioned before the budget director David Stockman former congressman from Michigan and there was the congressional liaison that had been ironically enough part of the Rockefeller wing of the Republican party and you say well how does a Rockefeller Republican end up in a highly conservative administration and the answer is because Reagan understood I think the importance of knowing how congress works and the importance of hiring people who can work effectively with congress and so they did they went forward to congress and they explained to congress the mandate from the American people now this is a sort of a funny situation because their mandate was empirically based on not only the election of Ronald Reagan but the defeat of six liberal senators that same year however if you analyze the figures closer what you see is that Reagan at one actually 27% of the eligible vote in the United States in 1980 and on the basis of 27% of the eligible vote he claimed a mandate and he was so convincing in claiming a mandate that the speaker of the house who we mentioned earlier Tip O'Neill said to his Democratic colleagues we better give this guy some of what he wants he's so popular and so they negotiated heavily staying focused like a laser beam as Bill Clinton would say later on three key issues cutting taxes social welfare spending and increasing defense spending and they actually accomplished all three of these things in the first year and a half of the presidency a tax cut of 30% a social welfare cut of about 7% and a defense increase of 10% not bad for a year in Washington alright very interesting let's get some court input on these issues Chad what is your approach to developing priorities and focusing in on them a few at a time Michael there's an old saying you can build a house one brick at a time the same goes for an agency that's going through change I think that when you prioritize your tasks and have everyone focused on that one task you're going to get more energy more solutions a faster solution to the problem I don't think anybody's going to agree to splitting up their armies and dividing up the responsibility is going to win anything thanks Betsy many of us have a tendency to take on too many projects and what's critical is to always sort of take a time out and just make sure that what you're working on is consistent with your vision and your long term plans and often you need to just say okay where is everything and if we have a number of projects that are on the five yard line let's make sure we get some touchdowns before we kick off some new projects but I know that I rely on my staff a lot because they're going to tell me if we've got too many new things going on and we're just sort of scattered and we're not focused on the task at hand and the overall vision of the organization but sometimes it's just a matter of taking a time out seeing where you are and starting again thanks Michael I'm going to now delve into the third component of leadership with Ronald Reagan and that is the component of structure and again compared to Jimmy Carter we find a very different picture here we find a man who is not as interested in making changes as Jimmy Carter and using a more traditional management structure and a unique twist on it because Ronald Reagan is the master delegator if you ever want a picture of delegation and what delegation looks like look at Ronald Reagan there is after all a paradox to the Reagan presidency as his biographer Luke Cannon pointed out in a very good book called The Role of a Lifetime by the way, Luke Cannon indicates that Ronald Reagan was surprised that anyone who wasn't an actor could be president of the United States in any case, Reagan Cannon says that never before in history had so many people been indebted to one person for its ideological inspiration as was the case with Ronald Reagan and yet never before had one person, the president been so totally dependent on others for the details of governance because he really did not know the details he really wasn't interested in them and he did not know them but he surrounded himself with people and both Betsy and Ted talked about the importance of surrounding yourself with talented people who will challenge you when necessary and who will do your work for you without you having to look over their shoulder every moment he had a delegating style he wanted to be out of the White House by 4.30 or 5.00 he liked to eat dinner with Nancy he wanted to go horseback riding he wasn't there all night studying briefing papers and doing what other presidents have done he had what Francis Fitzgerald in her book called Way Out There in the Blue a macro manager the exact opposite of a micro manager a person who only sees the big picture who doesn't understand the details and has no patience really for the details and delegates them out to people whom he trusts that's what Ronald Reagan's structure is and I believe most professionals are inspired by being trusted by a manager by a leader who's looking over their shoulders and who gives them the freedom to operate this is inspiring I believe to most employees and even in the judiciary yes Ted Betsy what can court leaders learn from Reagan's macro management as compared to Carter's micro management you're much more well rested if you're a macro manager but you can't be solely a macro manager there are some things that must be micro managed in the nature of the project or whatever it is but it all comes down to balance and so when you have staff that you trust who are talented and you know are going to get the job done right you delegate those things and that's part of the macro management but when there are certain things that require whatever skills or talents that you have that need to be micro managed then you use those skills to get those things done basically you take the best of President Carter and the best of President Reagan and you merge them together to come up with a well thought out way of managing Betsy I agree I don't think you want macro managing of your budget I'd sort of like to do that myself but macro management is sort of a sharing of power basically what you want to do and I'm again in agreement that it is so much more relaxing when you can go away and you have confidence when the office runs itself a CEO of Swedish Airlines and studying in the leadership development program said that he measured his leadership style by how many phone calls he received when he was away if he received an abundance of telephone calls then he was not doing a good job of macro managing if he received no phone calls then he was doing a real good job and that he was preparing leaders because no one really needed him I think that we have to have confidence in our staff and let them proceed with policy towards our goal Paul de Paulito and I discussed it at length with him said that we spend so and he's right we spend so much energy and time hiring the best and the brightest what good is that strategy if we don't let them use their talents and what are we doing for future leaders if we don't let them practice the hardest thing I believe that can happen is for you to be appointed to a position of leadership in having no practice it's just you're cold it's a lot better and the confidence level rises if you've had some some instances where you've been able to run the show Michael I believe we have one more dimension of leadership to cover with Mr. Reagan thanks for keeping me on track Michael yes we do and the last is of course process and here we find in the Reagan administration a more limited diversity than we saw in Carter we see a more traditional structure where again the lines of authority are pretty clear and where again the style of management is a macro management style and where conflicts sometimes get resolved sometimes they don't because again Reagan is not always deeply involved in all of the discussions and so what we see as we move into the second Reagan administration which I'm not actually going to spend much time on is we see a slight deterioration in my opinion and we see the problem that Betsy kind of intimated we see almost too much macro management and we see what Emerson once said every excess causes a defect every sweep has its sour traits that are seen as positive can be taken too far and Reagan's macro management I think went too far in the second administration he began to lose sight too much of what was going on right before him he began to lose touch with some very important policy decisions and some very important events that were occurring let me give you an example you can relate to this if somebody were to come to you to say let's just switch two positions let's switch the head of personnel with the deputy in charge I think you'd want a little time to think about it in the second administration somebody came to Ronald Reagan in the basement of the White House and they said Mr. President why don't we have jobs change between Donald Reagan and the Treasury Secretary in the first administration and Jim Baker who's the chief of staff so that we'll have Reagan become the chief of staff and Baker become the Treasury Secretary well a decision like that I would think somebody would want some time to think about it Reagan's reaction was just like this sure let's do it and so we see the dangers of an over reliance on the macro management things begin to deteriorate with the savings and loan institution with the Iran hostage situation and with many other things unraveling before him we see that he was not a perfect president either thanks for those ideas Michael let's move on to our next president George Bush Sr what ideas or what memories do we have from his administration it was the first time I think in my lifetime that we went to war read my lips no new taxes yes Betsy's comment about read my lips this is one of the most egregious presidential promises broken that we can remember the fact of the matter is empirically most presidents keep their promises some wish they'd forget them but a lot of them do empirically more presidents keep them than abandon them but of course we remember the ones that were abandoned especially in so egregious an instance as the one that Betsy mentioned now as we set up the Bush administration Bush Sr that is let's take a look at the inauguration of George Bush so that we can remember the awesome responsibility of presidential leadership as we see Chief Justice Rehnquist inaugurating Walker Bush do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will to the best of my ability and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States so help me God congratulations it's a big job with big responsibilities and this brings us the awesome nature of the office now let's go back to my fourth part framework and analyze the administration of George Bush Sr and let's start with vision here we're back to a man who really undervalues I believe the importance of vision in fact he mockingly refers to it as the vision thing in his campaign against then Governor Michael Dukakis and so what did Mr. Bush rely on Mr. Bush relied on his resume and what a failure it was he had a stellar resume there wasn't a better one in Washington he had been the vice president ambassador to China ambassador to the United Nations he had been the head of the CIA he had had every responsible job that you could possibly have in Washington and yet he lacked a vision and I believe it fundamentally hurt his administration as I'll talk about later I don't know about you but he had incredible resumes and then when they come in for an interview they have a hard time explaining why you should hire them I think in some respects it was like this although because of the campaign he ran against Michael Dukakis which was based largely on thematic issues again as it was with Jimmy Carter but in this case really negative ones the fact that Michael Dukakis was a card carrying member of the ACLU he was soft on crime and you can't trust Democrats on crime these were the themes that George Bush used to defeat Michael Dukakis now let me just say a word about Dukakis because I think it illustrates some other points we want to make one, Michael Dukakis announced the theme of this campaign is competence now doesn't that make you want to run to the polls competence there are five professors at Harvard stand up and cheer and the rest of the country goes to sleep competence is not exactly an exciting issue moreover on the first presidential debate Michael Dukakis was asked Governor what would you do if your wife Kitty were raped first question out of the box and Michael Dukakis answered he went into a long discourse on constitutional law he showed inappropriate response he showed no emotion no feeling, no anger nothing except words words and more words and this was a big turn off for the American people and by the way his staff told him in the campaign you're being perceived as elitist you're being perceived as a technocrat people are wondering is this a human being or a robot and in the last week of the campaign he put on a blue shirt and he went in a tank and things actually went up well in any case he was defeated by George Bush and George Bush to his credit and because he had spent so many years in Washington when he became president he surrounded himself with Washington professionals people like Jim Baker like Richard Darman and I believe this helped him I'd like to get our court leaders views on this as well what do you think about the importance of surrounding yourself with competent and qualified people Michael I think it's invaluable I have truly been blessed I've worked with a staff in pretrial services for a number of years that have worked as a team we have been merged with a equally staffed office in the probation office I have been appointed chief to an office where I work with friends not everyone can say that where everyone at this juncture has really stepped up to be counted support staff do far more than their benchmark defines officers who are willing to put in volunteer time at the CC Center work with students in the office do career days outside the office administration who really has kept me focused slowed me down I have a tendency to run away and have too many meetings and they've been very very patient I can't imagine being in an office where everyone's going in a different direction getting to a goal would be very slow and arduous I'm pretty proud of western district of Pennsylvania surrounding yourself with good people means surrounding yourself with people who are different from you who have different skills, different talents different backgrounds, different levels of experience and also a different Myers-Briggs temperament even and it also means surrounding yourself with people who want to be there who want to contribute to the goals and achieving the vision of the organization so it's a leader's responsibility to help those people who don't have the skills, the talent and the interest to remain in the organization to find opportunity employment opportunities elsewhere and helping those people find where they're going to fit and where they're going to succeed and where they're going to achieve their personal goals the human resources is one of the hardest parts of being a leader managing human resources it's the most important resource that we have and in very difficult budgetary times like we're going through now and that we'll be going through years the leader needs to stay on top of it and do everything he or she can to make sure we take this most important resource and use those resources in a way that helps the organization achieve its goals and achieve its vision Thanks Michael, shall we complete the analysis of George Bush 41? I appreciate the insights of Ted and Betsy on the surrounding yourself and I think the idea of diversity again came up diversity of opinion is very very important to a president or to any leader now in the area of politics again Bush did surround himself with Washington professionals he was well advised well served so well served that a lot of them are back advising his son today we're going to move to some of the other issues structure and process but we're going to do it in a maybe perhaps a little bit of a different way because George Bush during his presidency was confronted with a significant crisis and that crisis was the invasion by Saddam Hussein or as he like to call him Saddam of Kuwait and George Bush in this case used his diplomatic skills and used them quite convincingly in my opinion let's take a look at a speech that George Bush delivered on the on the invasion of Kuwait The world has answered Saddam's invasion with 12 United Nations resolutions starting with a demand for Iraq's immediate and unconditional withdrawal and backed up by forces from 28 countries of six continents so a droid was George Bush senior in building a coalition against Saddam Hussein that he was actually able to align on the same side of the conflict Syria Saudi Arabia and Israel he was a droid in convincing the Israelis to stay out of the conflict even as the scud missiles were flying into Tel Aviv he was a droid in many aspects of this conflict and he achieved what many consider to be a tremendous victory in the field largely through the efforts of the Goldwater-Nickel reforms the military had been operating under a unity of command and Schwarzkopf was the commander and he operated without constraint in terms of what branch of the military happened to be in and everybody deferred to him and it was a very splendid operation it's hard to talk about war that way but from a technical point of view it was and George Bush achieved a tremendous victory in the Gulf War we had fewer casualties than we expected it went faster than most people thought it would and he came out of it with what many managers and many professors can only fantasize having a 90% approval rating let me tell you if you ever get a 90% approval rating do something because you're not going to see it again anytime soon now George Bush after the Gulf War had a 90% approval rating by the way his son after the 9-11 also had a 91 or even 92% approval rating but Bush Sr because he really did not have a vision he did not know what to do with this 90% approval because frankly he could have done whatever he wanted he could have introduced major welfare reform he could have reformed education he could have done practically anything he chose because congress was very much aware of his popularity and had he only had a vision it really goes back to the lack of vision and understanding of how to translate this groundswell of support this tremendous reservoir of popularity into policy achievements which he missed the boat on in my opinion excuse me Michael but we've covered a lot of territory on presidents and leadership how about summing up I think that leadership for any of us is a daunting challenge and it is particularly a daunting challenge for the president of the United States it seems insurmountable it seems almost overwhelming we notice how each president ages as he's in office it's a very heavy responsibility the responsibility of our court leaders of our chief judges is equally heavy maybe not equally but similarly heavy I should say but what I'm suggesting here today I guess is that by focusing on these four aspects of leadership by having a vision what Rudy Giuliani calls organizing around strong beliefs in his very excellent book on leadership organizing around strong beliefs that's who you are that's your core that's the vision that will move you forward developing an influence strategy because as soon according to Peter Block as soon as we try to translate vision into reality we become political we have to be political in that respect I get nervous when I hear leaders and managers say I'm not a political person I understand where they're coming from because political has become a dirty word but frankly persuasion is needed in leadership so you need a persuasion effort even if you don't want to call it political third a structure that's efficient and that's nimble and that can respond to change as Ted has mentioned on several occasions today and finally a process that invites dissenting opinions but that doesn't get hamstrung by a conflict and those are the ingredients I believe that court leaders and others can learn from let's see if our court leaders have any summary thoughts Betsy you first well what this program demonstrates is that you can basically steal ideas from anyone and you can take the good things that you see leaders doing and you can see the bad things they do and just make a determination I'm never going to do that a few years ago when President Bush was governor of Texas I read an article about his management style and one of the things that he did that I thought was a really great idea was he sort of got rid of the idea and planning of regularly scheduled meetings and he would meet with people on an as-needed basis and I adopted that technique and found that it worked great and my staff loved it I loved it and it worked really well will it work for everyone? No but it works for me and there's leaders at every level of the organization and everyone should take advantage of just watching people whether it be corporate leaders, political leaders court leaders, judges and pick up ideas and try them out leadership isn't easy and the more ideas the more things you can try out the more you can just experiment the better leader you will be and this program and the four elements of leadership are critical to sort of succeeding as a leader Ted, any final thoughts? I have two points I think what we can learn from this broadcast is that there is no one right way to lead that every situation demands a different type of leadership style there are sometimes as a leader you're going to have to take the bull by the horns make the difficult call other times you're going to be a teacher a coach or just a team member and there are going to be sometimes when you need to say to yourself there's someone else in the organization that's better at leading in this segment than I am a good leader can also become a good follower second of all I think that like Betsy says we need to expose ourselves to different types of leadership what you don't want to do is to become a mirror image of your chief or your mentor if your chief or mentor is a mirror image of their chief or mentor you're going to find yourself in the year 2004 leading in a way a leadership style of 1980 I think that you need to expose yourself to different types of leadership the easiest way for me was for me to expose myself to leadership for free was the leadership development program and I advise anybody and everyone who they can who can to get involved with that well thank you both for your insights and for joining us today and thank you Michael for your experts always a pleasure Michael and I would like to thank you for your wonderful hosting and our panelists and I'd like to thank Nathan Douglas for his wonderful help in this program on many levels and Maisha and Latanya in the studio thank you all very much thank you for joining us today and until next time I'm Michael Bernie wishing you a pleasant day