Sunny defends Ed Balls:
Indeed, the single-mindedness that allows him to “get things done” might even be a drawback to being leader, at least in peacetime. A big quality of a good leader - and a good PM - is the flexibility to reconcile conflicting factions, people and ideas and to respond to new events. Such flexibility sits uneasily with single-mindedness.
This is not the only way in which the qualities required to be a minister are different from those required to be leader.
A good minister is the master of a specific policy area, whereas a good leader must be a jack of all trades. A minister must be good at dealing with - or ignoring! - civil servants, lobbyists and “experts”, whereas a leader, especially when leaders’ debates are important, must be better at addressing the general public. And a minister is a manager whereas a leader is a chairman.
It’s entirely possible, then, that an excellent minister might make a lousy leader - and vice versa. Those of you with a higher view than I of Brown’s chancellorship might cite him as an example.
And yet this is not how politics is viewed. Few men who served merely as ministers, however competently, are regarded as political successes and look back entirely happily upon their careers; who‘d be the exceptions - Bevin, Bevan, Jenkins, Howe? “Leadership” is regarded as the prize, and anything less as failure.
This attitude is, of course, not confined to politics. One feature of business since the 1980s has been a growing (and over-) valuation of leadership and a downgrading of professionalism. In most organizations, you’ll be vastly better-paid as an awful chief executive than you would be as a top-rate underling. In business, as in politics, there's little space for the excellent specialist whose self-knowledge is misunderstood as a lack of ambition.
Personally, I find this love of hierarchy not only ugly in itself, but I suspect it is deeply inefficient. Shouldn’t a party vaguely connected to socialism do more to challenge it?
Ed Balls was a lot better at getting things done and pushing policies through than many of his colleagues. He was just single-minded…For the sake of argument, let’s grant the premise. Does this really equip Balls to be leader? Surely, the ability to push policies through shows that he’d be a fine minister, not that he‘d be a good leader.
If people want to see the Labour party actually get some work done then Ed Balls may be the right candidate.
Indeed, the single-mindedness that allows him to “get things done” might even be a drawback to being leader, at least in peacetime. A big quality of a good leader - and a good PM - is the flexibility to reconcile conflicting factions, people and ideas and to respond to new events. Such flexibility sits uneasily with single-mindedness.
This is not the only way in which the qualities required to be a minister are different from those required to be leader.
A good minister is the master of a specific policy area, whereas a good leader must be a jack of all trades. A minister must be good at dealing with - or ignoring! - civil servants, lobbyists and “experts”, whereas a leader, especially when leaders’ debates are important, must be better at addressing the general public. And a minister is a manager whereas a leader is a chairman.
It’s entirely possible, then, that an excellent minister might make a lousy leader - and vice versa. Those of you with a higher view than I of Brown’s chancellorship might cite him as an example.
And yet this is not how politics is viewed. Few men who served merely as ministers, however competently, are regarded as political successes and look back entirely happily upon their careers; who‘d be the exceptions - Bevin, Bevan, Jenkins, Howe? “Leadership” is regarded as the prize, and anything less as failure.
This attitude is, of course, not confined to politics. One feature of business since the 1980s has been a growing (and over-) valuation of leadership and a downgrading of professionalism. In most organizations, you’ll be vastly better-paid as an awful chief executive than you would be as a top-rate underling. In business, as in politics, there's little space for the excellent specialist whose self-knowledge is misunderstood as a lack of ambition.
Personally, I find this love of hierarchy not only ugly in itself, but I suspect it is deeply inefficient. Shouldn’t a party vaguely connected to socialism do more to challenge it?
Excellent post. And it's not as if we don't have an recent example of someone good at 'pushing things through' failing in the top job.
Posted by: Gaw | May 21, 2010 at 05:16 PM
Sh*t usually floats to the top.
Posted by: I Agree with Nick | May 21, 2010 at 05:47 PM
"the single-mindedness that allows him to “get things done” might even be a drawback to being leader, at least in peacetime."
Or, one might reasonably suppose, it might not be a drawback during a peacetime crisis of almost wartime dimensions. Compare national debt, 1945/2010.
"A big quality of a good leader - and a good PM - is the flexibility to reconcile conflicting factions, people and ideas"
Flexible reconciliation does tend to result in nothing being done, getting things done being a drawback. See above for occasional peacetime undesirability of that.
"and to respond to new events"
In a crisis, when things have to be done, that may not require flexible reconciliation.
OMIGOD what have I done, I'm arguing in favour of Ed Balls.
Desperate retraction: what has he got done that was worth doing?
Posted by: stephen | May 21, 2010 at 07:01 PM
stephen - National debt in 2010 is nowhere near as large as it was in 1945. It's currently about 69% of GDP, whereas national debt peaked in the late 40s at nearly 250% of GDP. (source http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/downchart_ukgs.php?year=1900_2010&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=2010&chart=G0-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=l&color=c&title=UK%20National%20Debt%20As%20Percent%20Of%20GDP) Not saying it isn't a problem (not least because of the direction of travel) but it's still lower than at any time between about 1915 and 1975
Posted by: patrick | May 22, 2010 at 10:18 AM
Leadres lead; bosses boss - thst is different Bullies bulls**t - different again. I suspect that Balls is in the third category.The bit of socialism that Labour still seems vaguely attached to is the idea that they decide what we want; so is Balls such a bad fit?
Going to who gets the millions, the banks are paying the rally heavy cash to the professionals, not to the bosses.
Posted by: David Heigham | May 22, 2010 at 12:37 PM
Unfortunately, that's the reality. I agree with the general idea conveyed in the article. Like it or not, skills, responsibility, moral value, knowledge and hard work are no longer the receipt to success in any work area. Nowadays, it has become more like a connections and smart moves game in which the coldest and the most selfish people get to the top even if they haven't worked hard or even if they are not suitable for a certain position. Sad bad true.
Posted by: Fred Kapoor | May 24, 2010 at 12:55 PM