The only people who really cared about how Trump ran his business was the people he ripped off. Workers, Contractors, Vendors. The smart ones cut him off like Cancer and were too ashamed that they ever got caught up in his web of robbery to admit it, publically, at least. The fact is, Trump was a small time Con Man with a big time PR Game. He was a Punk when he inherited his Dad's ill-gotten fortune. He was a Punk when he ran it and was a Punk right up until the day he took the Oath of Office. He is now a Punk with Power, we call that a Dictator Wanna-Be.
Many of Mr. Pfeffer's comments suggest Americans would be better off if the august voices of the Stanford School of Business had less sway over corporate management principles (I admit I'm not overconcerned with niceness, but I'd take an honest loser with a modicum of empathy over a mendacious winner lacking it), but his suggestion that the President doesn't care what people think is simply wrong.
It's evident to even the most casual observer that the President cares deeply what some people think of him. It's just that those people comprise a small group of far-right media personalities, unrepentant racists, and wealthy criminals and autocrats.
6
What large, successful corporation or institution on the planet would even hire this individual?
4
Trump has been described as a transactional president. That is his problem. Trump cares for nothing non material. Not people, families, not rules, not organizations. For him it’s only popularity, measured by polls and money. That’s his total self worth. Other the other hand,most of the people of this country care deeply for our Country. The clash in his values, or lack thereof, and ours was inevitable.
6
Trump has been unusually effective, so criticism of his style is somewhat misplaced.
Donald Trump isn’t fit to manage a coffee shop let alone our country. I mean, seriously would you hire him for anything? He doesn’t have the intelligence, the people skills or the business acumen I look for in a potential hire.
2
The man bankrupted casinos.
Why anyone thinks Trump is a "great business man" is beyond me.
Anyone reading here, myself included, would just as successful, if not more successful than Trump, if our daddies all made us a millionaire by the time we could walk, and then gave us millions more to start a business.
All Trump has going for himself is the accident of his birth.
If Trump was born to a poor father, he would just be the obnoxious blowhard everyone tries to ignore when ever he opened his mouth.
Money can't buy brains or class.
Trump[ proves it every single day.
4
Stop dissecting Trump! Focus on Mitch McConnell and why he's letting this happen. Why is the media letting McConnell hide. Take him to task.
1
It’s not leadership by definition
1
So Trump said today he won’t declare Emergency yet because that’s “too easy.”
slimy Graham probably told Trump that going to the courts would result in no wall for maybe 2 years. plus it would galvanise Democrats in 2020. Possible loss for Trump.
But why does Trump care? Because (I admit its only speculation) he badly wants his cut of the Wall- construction is mafia linked industry. Trump would get kickbacks after the Presidency ended from his friends who would be contracted for Wall construction & all related supplies. I also bet the cost will be multiple of $5.7billion.
This is Trump’s chance to enrich himself on the taxpayers expense.
Trump isn’t thoughtful. Why would he not declare Emergency? Because doing so would guarantee no wall in at least the 1st term.
2
Arrogance is not self-confidence. Impatience is not decisive.
Steve Jobs actually built something that withstood the test of time (not once but twice). It is doubtful what was "built" under the current administration will survive the test of time. The quality that made Steve Jobs hard to work with was that he was a perfectionist and that hardly describes who is in the White House.
7
What evidence is there that Trump’s management style ever worked? If anything, the last two years have exposed him and his “organization” as a vast scam.
15
Who knows if Trump is currently a successful businessman. We don't have his tax returns. We don't know his assets vs his liabilities. We just know something just doesn't feel right.
11
It's always refreshing to get an analysis from someone who is living in an alternate reality. The contrast between what we can actually see versus the imagined 'reality' highlights the important factors.
Donald Trump has been highly successful as a businessman in that he has succeeded in staying out of jail, has been successful in evading taxes, has been successful in walking away from failure after failure, and successful in finding more money from other people to keep his scams going, not to mention all the people he's been able to stiff.
That someone can write something like this in 2019 suggests P.T. Barnum's apocryphal comments on a particular birth rate wildly understate the case.
6
I'd say that that Trump has not been able to achieve his campaign promises because his promises were just cheap words, not sincere in the least. What better example than his promise to replace Obamacare with something better, cheaper, and more universal. Then as president he proceeded to gut Obamacare with nothing to take the place of the weakened program.
What's management style got to do with it? Trump's actions are born out of his lack of intellectual capacity to formulate anything more complex than a Twitter Tweet. As a global warming denier his "burn (coal) baby burn" initiatives are far simpler to do than chart a course to reduce greenhouse gasses.
A better question is what's mendacity and a penchant for cruelty got to do with it? A lot.
8
And why isn’t the Russian arm twisting mentioned as a destructive factor?
2
Mr. Trump's "style'" seems only to be a mixture of lying as well as, on the other hand, so often believing his own lies.
That he is so fond of calling everything that he objects to, a "witch hunt", as for example, that there has been no collusion with †he Russians when it seems plainly that there has been.
That he thinks that he is always right, despite the fact that he almost never is, is not in his favor, and that those in his administration are often in disagreement with him though they are apt to let him have his way to avoid arguments.
A great many members of his administration eventually leave it, having no other choice.
If they actually did serve in his administration, I would suggest they don't add it to their resumes!
6
I will get Trump credit as a con-man. He knew that if he put a "R" behind his run for president, his chances when up!
Take the time to look at your family and neighbors, especially, if they vote Republican. Even today, after two years of behaviors that most of us would never expect from our president. 85 - 90% of our family and neighbors think Donald Trump is doing a great job.
This unusual leadership style works for many!
3
“With a modicum of management skill he could have gotten his wall, and he would probably be on the path to re-election,” said Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “But he has very few accomplishments to his credit.”
Organizational Behavior is a course deals principally with how people interact, and what what motivates (and demotivates) them.
The personality issues that Delusional Donnie has, in particular his total inability to consider anything from the perspective of another person, such as someone with whom he has to negotiate, are his undoing. Delusional Donnie has zero desire or interest to consider the position or motivation of Speaker Pelosi or Leader Schumer, so he is not going to ever do well negotiating with them.
In addition, Delusional Donnie thinks he can change his mind, or his list of requirements, at any time, and that the other side will simple cave. Nobody gets to an agreement with a negotiator who keeps changing the terms of the deal.
4
Trump doesn't have a style, he has a disposition, a nasty, bullying, and, ultimately, cowardly disposition. And he certainly doesn't know how to negotiate, which in the best cases results in a win-win outcome, which breeds future cooperation, not only with that partner, but with all other potential partners who have witnessed the proceedings. He's only ever known how to use brute force when he has all the chips, and to slink away with his tail between his legs when he doesn't. It's also true that he has sub-optimal processing power, which is why he avoids multilateral deals; his brain is simply incapable of grasping multifaceted positions. No style, no values, other than self-interest.
14
Could you imaging a publicly traded CEO telling lies on a regular basis to shareholders and the SEC.. He soon would be out of a job and looking at a number of law suits. This guy is not a manager in any shape or form. He is a con man!
13
How much more winning can this country stand
before steps are taken to relieve this person
from “playing” at being President of the United
States of America?
He is incompetent, dangerous
and greedy. He is a racist creating division and hate
in a diverse society. He’s unable and unwilling
to work for the good of ALL Americans.
When?
12
As if this wasn't already completely obvious/predictable when Trump announced that he was going to run for office?
Before he ran for office, Trump already had a well-established record as being an amoral, dishonest, psychopathic, extreme narcissist. Why are we even talking about that anymore, rather than how to rid our now imperiled country/democracy of him?
8
His so-called success in business was due to an inheritance from his super -rich Dad
That won't help him in running the country
5
What a disservice you do with this column: Donald Trumps "Management Style?" Please don't normalize him. A man like Donald Trump is better described by Psychology Today when describing a dictator: "They brim with self-confidence and independence, and exude sexual energy. They are also extremely self-absorbed, masterful liars, compassionless, often sadistic, and possess a boundless appetite for power. These are just a few of the character traits present in a genuine psychopath."
9
Did the author actually use the words Trump and Leadership in the same sentence?
8
Anyone who cannot abide reading briefings and who lets one tv station fashion his views is not a first rate, world leader.
I bet Kelly is happy to have exited the zoo.
6
This isn't about style. Its about his malignant narcissism.
6
Trump's management style isn't working because it's incompetent, not "unusual."
7
The only thing I'm surprised about is that we're calling the outcomes of his 'leadership style' surprising. All one needs to do is look at his past private sector failures and you could easily predict how this would end up.
The J in Donald J Trump stands for Chapter 11. How the heck do you bankrupt a casino?
10
I have to take issue with several assertions in this article.
First, Trump ALWAYS cares what people think. It drives his every action and behavior and always has. It made him nuts that the NFL owners, not a particularly moral or reputable bunch, flatly rejected him as too unprincipled and too much of a low-life. He always wanted to be accepted into the highest circle of society, who from their POV, saw his as a loudmouth, a classless, uncouth, rude boor.
Instead, he turned to the lowest common denominator, selling them bread and circuses (without the bread) and has done everything to maintain that base of 35-40%, rarely going higher, and never, ever doing anything that risks alienating them, even if it means never rising above it. He cares what they think, and what their "high priests" (Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, and Alex Jones) think and say.
His "management style" hasn't worked as every real business he built collapsed. When his first wife went from being just arm candy and successfully ran one of his businesses, instead of lauding her, he FIRED her in a very messy divorce! He violates the first rule of management: Don't mess with people's salaries and what you agreed to pay them! Now he's doing it on a national scale, endangering the nation.
Hitler dreamed of a giant dome bigger than the SuperDome with an "ornament" on top the size of the Roman Pantheon. Planning it was an escape mechanism. For Trump, it's his "Wall". Not the best recommendation!
7
"Now President Trump is running a much larger enterprise. Two years into the Trump administration, it’s increasingly apparent that while the management traits he developed in the private sector may have propelled him into the White House, they’re not serving him well now that he’s there."
Delusional Donnie ran a sole proprietorship mom and pop operation, with no stockholders and no board of directors (basically no oversight). He acted on his every whim, and there was no one to hold him back. Anyone who did not "yes" in response to his every expressed wish got fired.
Now, he has a "board of directors" (Congress) and "stockholders" (the American citizens).
Now he is a CEO who has no idea how the US government operates, what the US Constitution and laws require, or how to deal with his "board of directors", who get to set his budget, decide what rules he has to follow, and cannot be fired by him. The "board of directors" can be fired by the "stockholders" (and we just shook them up in 2018). The "board of directors" has the power to fire him (analogous to the standard corporate form).
For two years, the "board of directors" gave him a pass, and caved to his every whim. That is now changed, and Delusional Donnie has no clue how to deal with the pushback that he is now receiving.
2019 is going to be "interesting" (as in the Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times").
In 2020 the stockholders will give him his comeuppance. BIGLY.
11
Malcolm Forbes of Forbes business magazine fame warned:
"Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business."
Donald Trump is the uber-example of the sort of businessman who can't see the difference between being a mini-czar in a secretive, privately held family business that is rarely scrutinized or held to any laws and an open & transparent democratic government where multiple people & agencies have specific responsibilities & where the government is run according to the rule of law.
Forbes also said:
"It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem."
Trump is extremely limited in his knowledge of anything outside of shady real estate dealing. And, he is not very good at that. In his early career, his failed deals were bailed out by his father through secret tax-cheating channels. Later, by the mid-1980s, Trump enjoyed the patronage of the Russian Mafia, which was only too happy to partner with him in his projects since New York real estate has long been a favored way for Russian mobsters & oligarchs (a tautology) to launder the money they were looting from the Russian people, their government, & international partners. Many on Wall Street would tell you that Trump never actually completed a successful project on his own merit. There, he is sometimes referred to, mockingly, as a "multi-thousandaire."
6
It just goes to show that give someone enough money, and they will put up with pretty much anything for some period of time. President Trump's corporate employees (outside of family, that is) are loyal for one reason, and one reason only. Money. Just look at Michael Cohen. He said how many times he would take a bullet for The Donald? Now that there is no more money, his loyalty to Trump has collapsed faster than a wet noodle.
3
Instead of "alternate set of facts" we should use "alternate set of ideas".
That the earth is not round but is a cube is not an alternate fact, no matter how many people believe it is a cube.
3
There is no leadership, all there is, is a spoiled six year old trying to run the country.
It's my way or the highway.
The people that voted for him are the same people that when they need a doctor they go to a lawyer and when they need a lawyer they go to a doctor.
You don't hire a businessman to be a politician or diplomat.
2
Trump’s unusual management style “worked” so well in the private sector that he bankrupted six companies.
6
Many of the comments here make valuable points that should have been up front in the article. The man was a disguised failure, not a success. And so forth.
But I object to a management-style analysis. His flaws mor basic. He is anti-democratic, leans toward fascism and pretends to promote "America First," does not respect ---doesn't even know --- the value and function of American institutions. He has no sense of history. He may have betrayed us to the Russian government, and he may be pursuing his own interests there and in Poland and who knows where else.
He's torn up valuable agreements (Paris, Iran) , pretends to not believe in global warming and climate change, attacks honorable people, and is now putting millions of people at risk and struggling, over his immoral wall.
I could care very little about his "management style." We need to get rid of him and his enablers, mostly Republicans.
3
Trump would never survive in a billion dollar publicly traded corporation. He'd be gone in a week.
10
I've been on the other side of Mr. Big Real Estate like Trump for more than 30 years. Mr. Big is always the smartest guy in the room. Mr. Big always threatens to walk from the deal if he doesn't get his way. Mr. Big is a genius when a rising tide lifts all boats. But when a deal goes bad, it's always someone else's fault. The architect or contractor messed up. The bank loaned me too much money. Mr. Big can do no wrong. Trump should go back to what he does best, gilding bathrooms for people with bad taste, slapping his name on golf tees and bar napkins. Just go. Please.
9
Bottom line: DJT has banked millions (billions?) of dollars for himself and his progeny. That accomplishment and leaving an indelible mark on civilization are the only measures that hold meaning for him, all at the expense of a gullible public.
3
Trump would never get away with this "management style" in a corporation that was not closely held. He would be fired in most government positions.
Some people thought a "businessman" could run a government, but Trump was not a good businessman by any measure. Bankruptcies, stiffing vendors, running a cult of personality: all are indications of failure.
No doubt this will go down in history as the worst, most corrupt administration ever. It's an embarrassment to decent people.
7
Trump is nothing more or less than a "Lame Duck".
His political capital, whatever he may have had, was fully spent in his first 2 years. He signed a massive tax cut bill pushed by the GOP 1% benefactors and appointed a good number of Federalist Society-approved federal judges. That's it Folks - that's all he and the GOP-controlled Congress accomplished in 2 years when they controlled all of the US Federal Gov't. We can only be thankful he and his cabinet were so inept and incompetent. All of the executive branch rulings will be overturned by the Democratic POTUS in 2021 - whomever that person may be.
The GOP knows deep down they cannot win in 2020 if Trump is their candidate - just will not happen. Look at the 2018 elections with 40 newly elected Democratic members of Congress. The GOP has walked the plank with Trump and there is simply no way back if they stick with him.
There are 34 Senators up for re-election in 2020, with 22 of those being GOP. And the net number required to swing the Senate to a Democratic majority is 4 seats. I am optimistic this brief scary interlude is quite possibly the last gasp of the current GOP - may they wander in the wilderness for a generation or two.
2
So someone whose business reputation was built on hundreds of millions of inherited dollars & a pattern of fraud & deceit & who bankrupted all of his business ventures is unable to govern the world's greatest democracy? Go figure!
3
"“A quality he seems to have is that he doesn’t care what other people think,” Mr. Pfeffer said. “Not many of us are like that. ""
Talk about a reality distortion field! Trump cares what EVERYONE thinks. Absolutely nothing rolls off his back. His tweets are almost always filled with over-the-top petty revenge insults in response to the slightest criticism. He shut down the government because he cares what Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter think.
And he REALLY cares what Putin thinks. To the max.
5
I bristle at the mention of the word leadership in relation to Trump -- he doesn't lead. He demands, bullies and harangues people who dare to disagree with him or even show the slightest bit of evidence of holding a opinion in opposition to his.
The vision of Kelly Ann Conway, choking over the words 'alternative facts' is so vivid and disgusting. That's what it takes to remain in Trump's inner circle.
1
Mr. Stewart, Trump doesn't have an "unusual leadership style". He has led his unfortunate and uneducated followers to believe that he is a businessman par excellence. He is nothing more than con artist par excellence. Or if you wish, he is nothing more than a grifter.
3
“A quality he seems to have is that he doesn’t care what other people think,”
This is ludicrously wrong. Donald does care. Otherwise it would not be so utterly easy to penetrate his skin as thin as toilet paper. Anyone, and we must include everyone, who criticizes the Trumpian person is blasted in return. Nothing rolls off his back. Each critique of the man is an insult to the being of Trump.
And too there is the narcissism. As with all narcissists, there is an inner core, a part of the being that knows without doubt the narcissist is inadequate in some fashion. This must be hidden at all costs to prevent observers truly knowing how shallow the narcissist is. And Trump is oh so so shallow. Thus Trump cares. About others knowing how weak he really is.
1
Having been handed a fortune from birth, having a father who bought his college degree, and minions who have supported his personal mythology for years, including doctors, one of whom was a Navy admiral, who offered gob-smacking public statements about his "excellent health," trumpy sailed through life until he hit the wall of public service and journalistic scrutiny. Most people now see him as a spoiled brat with a mega-tantrum who can't get anything done, despite having "owned" the legislative and executive branches for 2 years. They see in trumpy an unstable being, an overstuffed baloney sandwich whose sell-by date has surely come and gone. We elected a baloney sandwich, and that's all we get served until we get him out.
4
He has gone way past his level of competence whatever that was. Whether he was a good leader as head of his company I don't know -- he seems to have inspired some loyalty, not much but some, as head of his own TV show, he was a dictator of his little world but entertaining and harmless -- but as president of a democratic and highly developed western country he is terrible, a failure, by any credible standard a disaster - Confidence and ignorance are not a good combo.
2
The only survivors among the top 12 White House appointees are Bill McGinley, a low-profile adviser and the cabinet secretary, and Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Shhh!
Trump has lived in an artificial world most of his life.
A big inheritance insulated him from the struggles normal people face to earn a living and make ends meet.
Being surrounded by paid “yes-people” means his own private reality has seldom been challenged.
His management style relies on gut instinct and opinions formed in the absence of complicating real world facts that he is too lazy or unintelligent to assimilate.
His complete inability to speak coherently without a teleprompter points to severe intellectual impairment and degeneration.
Trump is a demonstration that drunken bar talk laced with bigoted dog-whistles and hate speech is all that is needed to get elected in America.
It is very sad that things will need to get very much worse before enough Americans will collectively come to understand the true depth of their political and societal problems.
The tragedy is that humanity will pay for these problems because of America’s insane failure to act to address climate change.
3
Is it effective anywhere?
Sure his style worked at the Trump Organization. He spoke and 'it' was made so. He was Everything - King Emperor Pope President and Stable Genius!
Doesn't work so well in the real world which the White House still has a relationship with barely.
Plus, there are people working at the White House who are not his family. Jared and Ivanka are used to The Donald. These two may not know much but they do know how to 'behave' with The Donald.
Let's face it, Donald is Obnoxious. A trait NO one enjoys. It is his position only which defies his many bad traits. And because of his being totally out of his depth, Trump is hiring people who are not on top of their game either. John Kelly took a big fall and Mick Mulvaney seems to be totally loosey goosey about what goes on there.
Bottom line, who wants to work for an obnoxious loud mouth who is mean?
2
I don't see a leadership style whatsoever.
1
All Donnie cares about is what others think about him. He was shunned by N.Y. society and it devastated him. Obama had a crowd laughing at him and you could see in his face that he couldn't take it. Anyone that doesn't think he's the best at everything and that he's the greatest person that ever lived is his enemy.
As far as being a even marginal businessman, give me a break.
1
I defy anyone to honestly claim that Trump's chaotic, impetuous, wholly unstrategic, corrupt, and even criminal "management style" has resulted in any long-term successes for him and his various businesses. Between his multiple bankruptcies, revealed long-term dependence upon hundreds of millions of dollars provided to him from his father, a record of assorted failed ventures, associations with highly questionable funding sources, the resort to numerous fraudulent practices, and a continuing avoidance to reveal tax records to ascertain whether he is even solvent, there emerges a clearer picture that Trump, instead, is a proven business failure. How possibly can our nation escape disaster with him serving as President?
3
Actually it is working, he just needs non-traditional employees. I would love to assist, his style is pretty much the same as mine. Get results!!!
No Mystery, it is really not complicated and it's very simple, it's because Donald Trump doesn't know what he is doing.
11
Leadership style? Trump has none. Leadership requires accepting responsibility, honest evaluation of reality, and concern for those being led. Trump displays none of these qualities, ergo he has no leadership, ergo he has no leadership style.
7
The point to understand is pfeiffer’s: with so much as adequate business skills (and any interest in them at all, I’d add), he’d be doing fine with enacting his agenda.
Whatever that is. From hour to hour.
1
From reading just a few reasoned comments about this article, it’s plain that even so-called leading management experts are blinded by the light of illusion Donald Trump has create around his personality and what he claims to have achieved.
2
Other democracies are not so ruled by big money politics and big money media hoopla. They have rw media, but not a FOX News type rw monopoly media that dominates with daily fake news like in the US.
The US was once a role model, now we’re a warning. We're learning that despite our long democratic tradition, our Constitution and Bill of Rights, our elections and policy are dominated by a small group of mega donors that like foreign oligarchs set limits of policy in their interests. They try to sell this to the public as part of American freedom.
That's why we're still the only modern nation without universal health care, generations behind most countries.
Now our warped election system has given power to an egotistical autocrat devoid of ethics or respect for the dignity and rights of the mass of citizens.
Other countries turning more autocratic like Hungary, Poland and Turkey are in a different category---with no long traditional democratic tradition, but previously ruled by or allied with Nazies or Communists.
The democracies of France and UK and Netherlands didn't elect their right wing candidates in last elections. The US did. We have to analyze how we differ from other democracies.
2
As many have pointed out, there is considerable question about whether Trump's style ever worked. But this article misses the point. There is a world of difference between leadership of a private company and leadership in government. In a private company, run the typical way these days (make money any way you can, scamming customers as useful) there is no daylight between the interests of the owner and the "success' of the company - both consist of making as much money as possible - even if the company has to go bankrupt to make money for its owner. In government, the point is serving the citizens and the common interest of the country as separate and distinct from the leader's personal agenda. Trump of course has no concept of serving anyone but himself and has not the foggiest notion of the "common interest." Of course,his "style" does not work - he doesn't understand the job and doesn't want to.
7
"Why Trump’s Unusual Leadership Style Isn’t Working in the White House"
Mr. Stewart give trump more credit than is due. Exactly what kind of leadership and skills doe trump have?
1
What happened to all those Tea Party conservatives that carry copies of the Constitution in their pockets? I'm pretty sure there is nothing in the Constitution that says "when you can't get the votes to pass, close the government and throw a tantrum". We need to start calling this what it is: fundamentally undemocratic.
15
@R Biggs agree 100% but yeah right....like the media hand wringing over whether is was ok to call him a liar back during the campaign?
1
What else could we expect from a guy who played a successful entrepreneur on television? A legend in his own mind. Completely out of his league. Unable to use his style of management and negotiation, which is bullying. Even I know several people in NJ and PA who made the innocent mistake of winning a contract with Trump. All got nickeled and dimed and were dared to take him to court. What is the saddest thing to me is that all those Red State voters actually believed he would take care of the "little guy" despite all the reporting to the contrary. A large portion of America are the equivalent of rubes.
14
Trump does not have a “leadership style” because Trump is not a “leader,” Trump is a “boss,” and the difference between the two could not be more profound or, in the case of this particular person, more obvious.
A leader provides direction, which people follow because they want to. A boss gives orders, which people obey because they fear the consequences if they do not.
If Trump had not been born into extreme wealth and an inherited position of power, he would have gone his entire life completely unnoticed and uncared for by the world and its inhabitants, because he intern does not notice or care for the world and its inhabitants.
16
@Gregory Scott. Calling Trump a boss is generous. He's little more than a thug.
3
I'm in management for the largest company in my field. We are a global company with offices in 90 cities, and 5,000 employees. We grew by almost 15% last year, which is absolutely unheard of for a company of our size. I wouldn't hire Trump to make coffee. He is dishonest, untrustworthy, negative, argumentative, insulting. He wouldn't last 5 minutes in any company I've ever worked for.
28
What can one expect from a guy that has never run a real business (except his own inherited family business and badly at that), never had to answer to any stakeholders , and never shown any leadership or management abilities? Totally incapable of running any real business, let alone the country. One thing he is good at - fooling the public with alternative facts.
9
The comparison of Donald Trump to Steve Jobs is completely absurd - Jobs was arrogant but he was also a visionary, Trump is a self-promoter who knows or cares about very little about anything outside of his own business interests.
Trump is also corrupt and self-dealing.
This discussion on whether or not Donald Trump displays effective management skills demonstrates exactly why gov't should not be run like a business, and why we should be wary of any successful CEO who says he wants to run for office absent any political experience.
While lying, engaging in reality distortion, amorality and brash overconfidence and a winner take all mentality might all be considered assets in a successful businessman, are these really the qualities we want in our President?
5
The real issue for mr Trump is his lack of understanding history and the way politics are build on rather complex idea's. Lack of interest, very short attention span, this president has a constant need to simplify.
Now, it may look effective to shovel aside difficulties thrown up by what is seen as mere adversaries. But his starting point, "I am to big to fail", brings the need to build a personal fantasy, wherein all has to be "wonderfull, great and smart". His constant need to tell his IQ is unparalleled, "only I can fix it", won't hold where the real goals are out of reach without the consent of others. When a manager is running wild on facts, constant telling lies, create ever more misunderstandings, while putting the blame on the other(s), there is little left then self dellusional bric a brac as a means to keep the attention. At some point there is nothing to build on but his fantasies. Those who feel to need to uphold their professional attitude will have to escape from the turmoil, the ever deeper growing mess. Just to get free from the stress of knowing this manager is going nowhere.
Nobody knows where America stands for (anymore). Every tweet may bring a different "solution", another way, a different direction. It is exhaustion that makes staff leave. And friends as well as adversaries will find their own way, away from the silly disturbance. There is so much noise and dust, no results can ever be trusted upon. It is only failure that saves the day .
1
The greatest leaders in history did one or two things or both: they surrounded themselves with people of the greatest ability or studied tirelessly every great leader before them. Trump has evidently done neither. And it's no coincidence that the greatest obstacle to knowledge is pretention. So I'm not surprised. And I must assert that when I saw trump on his show my first thought was certainly not that this guy should be running the country. Sentiment can sometimes be the most hideous thing imaginable.
8
@Leeroy
The reason that Trump hasn't studied how other great leaders achieved their success is obvious. He thinks he is the greatest leader and has already surrounded himself with the best people (albeit temporarily). In his mind, he requires no tutelage.
2
I agree that Trump is an ineffective leader. Let's see his tax returns to find out which financiers he is beholden to.
12
I am reminded of a 4-line verse of Ouvaiyyar, the 10th century Tamil poetess -- I need to use the gender-specific "poetess" to emphasize that the writer is a woman.
Here is the literal translation of her 4-line verse:
Rice paddy is threshed to get the rice grains; the husk is discarded.
Without the husk intact in the paddy seed, though, it never can geminate.
No matter how intelligent, strong, smart, and capable a person is,
Without critical subordinate support, one accomplished nothing.
This message is poignant in the context of our mess with Donald Trump in the White House.
Honestly, it is valid for all times and all places, in politics, corporate board rooms, organizational teams in work places, even in churches.
5
Having a Masters degree in management as I do, does not make me a leader, yet allows me to state unequivocally that whatever you wish to call what Trump does is not leadership.
The words style and leadership should not be used in the same sentence as his name.
6
Only a business mind can possible look at the ravings of this madman and call it a "management style". What the business mind cannot conceive of is that no large business actually has a "leadership" style. Corporations are hierarchies, essentially dictatorships, where the CEO can effect any decision no matter how disastrous without accountability. In fact, all such positions come surrounded by acolytes who will praise those bad decisions before and after for political reasons. This unaccountability has grown with the size of corporations to where it is today where CEO's live in a different world and make decisions that are disastrous to their companies and their country.
Large corporations foster a style of "anti-leadership" that is disconnected from the real world and which is largely responsible for the break down of the American economy. If we analyze the performance of American corporations absent the distortions of gamed financial statistics and the influence of sweetheart laws that destroy competition and labor bargaining power we find that American managers are outclassed by the leaders of business in all other industrial countries.
The American business leader has become a global joke and the one thing that America finds it impossible to export. No one wants an American business leader because no one wants a Trump to bankrupt their company. Except here where business lives in a self congratulatory mythology and leaders all have golden parachutes.
8
"Paul Glatzhofer, director of talent solutions at the consulting firm PSI International, agreed that Mr. Trump displayed some positive qualities of effective leadership, such as decisiveness, setting ambitious goals and self-confidence."
Only if decisiveness means arbitrarily changing one's mind every day, hour, or even five minutes and going from one bad decision to another.
9
"Unusual leadership style" is more obfuscation by the press. How long did it take to find a phrase to replace, "A terrible, miserable person who rants and raves at his employees."
14
Of course Trump cares what other people think about him, he is insecure and childlike and what his base supporters, Fox News, and those who can’t think for themselves think about him , is important to him. All you need to do is watch him at his rallies, without those people, who think he is son of God himself, he would be devastated. He is the vampire and they’re his blood line.
12
So basically Trump should have stuck to being the old-school obnoxious Real Estate Trump we all knew and loved-hated. But he didn’t, and I pity the fool.
Trump is completely in over his head, and probably internally desperate for help, but because of his deep insecurities and ego, he bulldozes and stomps and bullies rather than focus and fix.
If he would only relax, dump the big bad Trump schtick, and open his heart even a millimeter, his enormous talents would actually make him a decent president and possibly one of the great ones. But that is so not going to happen. I want Trump to be post-Christmas Scrooge, but he is only mean, bitter pre-Christmas Scrooge.
1
Leopards don’t change their spots, just saying.
1
Trump would not last a week at any U.S. corporation.
11
Once again this article posits the journalistic myth that Trump WAS a successful business man. Multiple bankruptcies despite huge start up funds from Daddy Fred, endless lawsuits for unethical practices, propped up by shady dealings (i.e. AMI Catch and Kill policies; the use of a Fixer like Cohen) and lots of failed projects. He IS a successful flim-flam man and does a great job getting press from undiscerning news outlets.
22
@JT Schultz the media refused to call him a liar during the campaign when it was patently obvious he was a liar. Don't expect too much from these same "journalists".
Come on. Trump's management style consists of being born to a fabulously wealthy and utterly indulgent father who violated laws to enrich him.
His five bankruptcies demonstrate the Las Vegas Rule:
To create a small fortune, start with a large one.
The embarrassing fact is America fell to a small tin drum.
19
What has worked for Trump is this: He consistently creates chaos to avoid accountability. Worked for him in his private business with no board, no shareholders. It does not work for him as president of the United States. Granted, it worked for him for a while. But the cascade of chaos which is his bread and butter will, one day not too far off, be the end of America.
8
Bullying isn't leadership.
10
Let’s set the record straight Trump’s not some great businessman. Take away the millions his father gave him and every else he’s touched is bankrupt.
Out of control White House, government shutdown, trade wars, sudden pull out of Syria.
Is this really any more complicated than Putin blackmailing this money laundering conmen Trump into tearing our country apart?
Putin is “sick of winning” and this traitor Trump must be removed from office.
9
Leadership is about helping a group achieve its purpose. Our purpose as a nation, as articulated in our founding documents is "To form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." What has Trump done to help us achieve any of these aspects of our national purpose? Why would the NYTimes refer to his "style" as having anything at all to do with leadership?
Leading involves helping the group to stay focused on its work (think Martin Luther King who just kept reminding us what we needed to do), taking in information from diverse members of the group so that all can continue to work together in the most productive ways possible (think FDR and all the various ways he tested out ideas and drew evaluations from everyone from his cabinet to his driver), measuring out the various challenges the work presents at a pace the group can manage (think your child's piano teacher -- giving assignments that cause your child to make steady progress rather than to throw up her hands and quit because it's simply too hard.
President Trump does not embody any of the skills or inclinations required of one who would lead others. His "leadership style" is not "unusual," it's non-existent.
1
Working for an unhinged toddler is a pain in the neck.
4
"Donald J. Trump’s highly personal management style as a businessman — impetuous, impolitic, sometimes immature — worked." How do we know that they worked? He accumulated $$$$. (Allegedly; although reports of the actual extent of his fortune vary.) But so too did Al Capone and El Chapo. Now I have no evidence that Trump is that class of criminal. Equally, neither do you, NYT, have the evidence that he is not. Let's see his tax returns and let's have a good forensic accountant go through them.
3
@Andrew. As far as I can tell Trump would have been richer if he had invested all the money daddy gave him in government bonds. It appears that he was given a large pile of cash and squandered it.
You lost me at the first paragraph. I read an interview with an architect who worked for him, before the election. She said he blew off meetings, would disappear for weeks and was totally scattered. She said he had no work ethic. Calling that success is delusional. He became wealthy, if he is, by scams and grifting, illegal acts.
I read the contact his company wrote for the “deal” in Russia. His business is licensing his name, little else. Read the contract, it’s clear. He doesn’t build anything but hot air.
30
@Garrett Clay. He became wealthy, if he is, because his daddy gave him a lot of money.
All management consultants will tell you the first sign of a poorly managed enterprise is high turnover. The white house and this administration isn't high, it's astronomical!
11
While I wholly detest Trump and wish he would go away soon, the article fails to mention the criminal justice reform bill that he recently signed into law. That law may end up being Trump's only lasting positive legacy.
@Henry. He has inherent sympathy for criminals, but did little to formulate the new law.
Because it's not "leadership"
4
'Donald J. Trump’s highly personal management style as a businessman — impetuous, impolitic, sometimes immature — worked. At the very least, it wasn’t publicly discredited very often.'
Wait. NYTIMES has time and time again tried to say his business style does not work & he is a poor businessman...which is it?
It is extremely misleading to suggest that Trump has been a successful business man. He has been in bankruptcy multiple times, has stiffed more contractors than one can count, and has engaged in unmistakable patterns of fraud over the years as the Times and others have reported in detail. The list goes on. Hype the properties you acquire, defraud investors, and walk away. No US banks would continue to lend to him, so he started getting money from overseas, especially Russian money, and we can only begin to imagine (and hope) what Mr. Mueller has on him now. That Russians and others are laundering money through his real estate is as plain as day, and we can only hope that prosecutors will be able to prove it all. He has no redeeming qualities, nor does he act anything remotely like a leader.
It is a terrible tragedy that he became president. What we need now more than ever are true leaders to get us out of this horrendous mess, but they are not going to come from the corrupt Republican party.
5
Can we please stop pretending that Trump has a management style, or a plan, or even a clue?
He's a child. He's driven by a need to make himself look good in front of people he needs adulation from and throws tantrums when he doesn't get what his brittle ego demands. This is not a fully formed adult. This is an infant in a fat, old man's body. And it's pathetic and laughable that we keep anthropomorphising his infantile behavior so it lines up with something we need to understand. Stop doing it.
Trump is an abusive personality. Ask any survivor of an abusive relationship and you'll get very stories of abhorrent behavior that matches what this clown does day in and day out. We can't do anything about him, but at least we can stop trying to turn him into a grown up in our minds.
10
As long as there are voters who embrace a lying, cheating, racist, proudly ignorant leader, there will be a place in the world for the likes of Donald Trump and his enablers and sycophants. I think the entire nation was more than a bit shocked to learn how many voters really find this behavior acceptable and commendable.
Having said that----I want to believe that the vast majority of honorable and decent American working men and women find this behavior abhorrent and completely antithetical to our national interests and goals-----but time will tell. As has become obvious, the so-called "leadership" of Trump's party find this behavior A-OK, and indeed Presidential. That alone is reason for great concern.
1
What a ridiculous frame. As if Trump’s ill-informed, boorish, narcissism constitutes a “leadership style.” Trump is no leader.
4
So the problem is management style??????
Yeah yeah. Sure it is. Thanks for the insight into the unfolding tragedy. Management.
5
The correct description of "an alternate set of facts" is called lying.
10
What leadership style are you talking about?
Lead by insult, innuendo and arm twisting?
That is not Leadership that is Bullying.
5
He (Trump) is a study in the "Dark Triad."
Wait! The White House has a staff?! Who knew?
"That’s not to say Mr. Trump hasn’t displayed some effective management techniques"
Strange that the writer does not mention any of these techniques. We're told that "narcissim and dishonesty" are "prevalent among many leaders," but these traits have been anything but "effective" for Trump. He ran an entire football league into the ground, has gone bankrupt several times and finally had to turn to the Russian mafia for money. Trump has, besides, never been "decisive"--he has been single-mindedly obsessed with his own ego, while he seems to change his mind about policy every day depending on what Fox News tells him to do--and its clear he really has very little self-confidence--what he has is the bluster and double-talk designed to distract people from his general incompetence. Without his racist daddy's help, Trump would be nowhere.
Is this really the business section of the NYT? Trump has nothing, and anyone who suggests that he is "decisive," "self-confident" and "ambitious" is as deluded as Trump, and has no business being quoted in the so-called paper of record.
1
If most have left or been fired over the last do nothing 2 years its now time to “Bye Bye” Trump. Total failure. The firings and walk outs of 50 to 83% of staff prove it, no one can work with him except the sycophants, nuts Kelly Ann or baby Kushner’s.
"Donald J. Trump’s highly personal management style as a businessman worked."
This article is fraud packaged as high-quality fertilizer. Somebody at the Times needs to be held accountable.
Trump's style has never worked. He's a fraud, thief, grifter, liar, cheat, and street-punk-wannabe. Handed a significant fortune at the start of his "career", he has largely squandered it. His management success: a string of bankruptcies, stiffed business partners, and incredibly tacky junk products, all of which have subsequently slid into the gutter.
At this point, smart money suggests he has a negative net worth, in hock to various unsavory money shifters, including almost certainly Putin and/or his Russian pals. Want to show us the returns you promised, DonDon?
He is crude and ineffective at every level, excepting -- amusingly -- with hypocritical faux evangelicals. His "narcissism and dishonesty" at held up as evidence of his qualifications as a leader.
In every measurable respect, our government is in chaos, increasingly staffed by people with even less credibility than Trump, if it's possible.
On the doorstep of exposure, he's clearly terrified, posing one distraction after another, raving and ranting unintelligibly.
At this point, he's covering for an interesting group of co-conspirators, from McConnell on down. Note that "deficit hawk" Paul Ryan slipped out the back door last week after running up by far the second largest deficit in the history of our country.
6
This shows what kind of monster Trump is, no empathy and conscience of whatsoever.
He was raised narcissistic and hope, He will be gone ASAP , save America before it’s too late.
He doesn’t deserve to be a president. Ok Americans now you know who he is. Next time vote wisely not being coerced by lies.
No mystery, really.
He's a poorly organized, overly aggressive, willfully ignorant monomaniacal blowhard who won't listen to other people. Who would want to work for a guy like that?
1
"Impetuous, impolitic, sometimes immature" That's not his style you're discussing, that's his neurosis's on full display. Coming from corporate America and knowing how little he actually does, between golf, "executive time", and his aversion to research and reading, I would posit that his style doesn't work because he doesn't either.
200
@Rick Gage He doesn't really come from corporate America. He came from a family-owned private corporation where he wasn't responsible or accountable for anyone.
20
@Rick Gage
I really wish the media had done a more through vetting of Trump. So many of his people still see him as a 'successful' businessman when that is very far from the truth. He's in reality a conman and a crook who treats his people with total disregard. Epic fail on the media for not exposing him way earlier on.
15
It probably doesn't help that he's a serial liar, has a nonexistent attention span and is utterly amoral.
15
The only "success" Trump had was on a fake reality show. His entire life has been one failure after another, bailed out by his father - $400 million.
The man is a black hole of stupidity, narcissicm and incompetence - laid out in detail by the author of "Art of the Deal" who worked with him for a long period. This was totally predictable long before he was elected by his uninformed, conned supporters.
The very idea that the words "Trump" and "...leadership style" are in the same headline is absurd. He doesn't have an "unusual" leadership style. He has no leadership style. He is an ignorant bully, a pathological liar, and a racist, amoral opportunist with a number of sycophantic republicans who fear him. Trump is no leader. Except in the sense that he is "leading" us to destruction.
1
Trump uses a fear-based management style, which doesn't inspire loyalty. In addition to all the people that he's fired, there's also a high number of low-level staffers that have left too.
I think it's unfortunate that so many voters were unable to foresee this scenario in 2016. I never believed that all of the name-calling and mudslinging he did during his campaign would stop if he were to be elected. It seemed to come so naturally to him; almost as if he did it on a daily before he started running for president.
If anyone is wondering whether this is new behavior for Trump, or something that Teump will change soon, read Bob Woodward's book, Fear. The way his book describes Trump's personality is an exact match of what you see playing out in the news. Unless Bob Woodward is a fortune teller or a part of a mass conspiracy to besmirch Trump's good name, it's highly likely that we have a manchild running our country.
3
The only measure of success from his private company is that he hasn't been fired from it. There is no reason to believe it has any profit other than possibly sneaking some cash flow out to tax dodges.
3
It has always been quite evident that trump's public persona has always been massaged to be presentable and his many detrimental qualities hidden as much as possible. Everyone hoped, that he could rise to the position, it appears now that this projection was simply wishful thinking.
The serious red flags, flashing and oversized, about trump's character, personality, views, and behavior were overlooked because...he was on tv?...he was a celebrity?
"A quality he seems to have is that he doesn’t care what other people think,” Mr. Pfeffer said.
Actually, he appears to care very much others think as evidenced by his obsession over media coverage and certain polls. In particular, he's highly attuned to what Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh think, to his and the country's detriment.
264
@DM re not caring what others think about him: I'm also reminded of the cabinet meeting where he directed each person to say good things about him; also, and especially, Pence's sycophantic behaviors even this week, talking about Trump's "negotiations" re the wall.
54
@DM
Exactly. His quest for adoration is clinical.
21
@DM Uh huh. He is desperately and quiveringly insecure. Craving constant validation and praise. Why do you think he masqueraded as obsequious PR men - “John Miller” or “John Barron” - to plug and plant press adoration of him? Trump's bottomless vanity has been exploited from the start by Russia & Saudi Arabia. Just to name the most obvious. His susceptibility to flattery is a crisis to American sovereignty.
38
Who says Trump's management style worked for him BEFORE he got to the White House? He chalked up six bankruptcies and stiffed so many lenders nobody would finance him but Deutsche Bank's private lending side--known to consist primarily of Russian oligarchs looking to launder money. And according to at least one analysis he could have made more off Daddy's money if he'd just put it all in an index fund and gone off and played golf.
One of the talent consultants quoted claims Trump does display "some qualities of effective leadership, such as decisiveness, setting ambitious goals [citing the border wall] and self confidence." Decisiveness? From someone so mercurial he can't be counted on to hold to a decision from one tweet to the next? Self confidence? In a man who requires rallies full of cheer and applause just to get him from one week to the next? The border wall a serious goal? When even those closest to Trump say it was never more than a symbol, a rallying cry against the influx of brown faces? A monument to a man who would be king?
Tell me again what Donald Trump brought to the table?
310
@Steel Magnolias
The value of Daddy's fortune that Donald inherited is about $800 Million in todays dollars. Given the stock markets average annual return during those years (9.7% pre tax) the value of his fathers money if invested in a total market index fund would be about $9.6 Billion today.
We know that Donald was broke in the 1990's, had transferred ownership of the Trump organization to his creditors, and carried a personal debt of $300 million. So in 20 years he lost all of his fathers fortune. But he did come back with a little money maker of a TV show called the Apprentice which made him a millionaire again and the Russian mafia covered his debts by using the Trump organization as a vast money laundering scheme. But he has made money through his share of the Russian mafia connection and is estimated to be worth over $200 million today. So while he lost all of his fathers fortune made in real estate, Donald is now a millionaire crook. So he has found his niche.
30
@Steel Magnolias He brought validation of the bigotry, envy and racism that infects his base and he brought those prejudices into the light of day. That's just about all he brought to the table, and he clearly has no regard for anyone other than himself.
15
@Steel Magnolias Brilliant analysis.
6
Given how many failed businesses he has behind him, it's hard to argue that his management style ever worked. He played a successful businessman on a television show -- and even then, his performance had to be heavily edited to maintain that fiction.
152
The column does not place this mess in the context of history: when a political party becomes completely cowed to the whims of an authoritarian, usually complete chaos (wars, famines, etc.). The GOP is weak, vacuous, and relies only on fear and resentment to motivate voters; if an authoritarian with more discipline comes along, America will be the nation that blunders into World War III. We should all be terrified at the cliff's edge on which our democracy sits.
140
@John
Our fate is in the hands of the next rich aristocrat who wants to be President. Lets hope that like FDR, he will also be a traitor to his class.
4
The most important line in the article is the one about how and individual's "success" can be different from the outcome as far as the organization is concerned. Indeed. Trump's record has always been to succeed - for himself - while leaving disaster behind him. He cares nothing for others and people who don't get this point are fooling themselves. No crumbs fall off Trump's table. Look at how he has handled taxes. He uses strategies that appear unlawful to me but, more importantly, enrich him which leaving the bill with us. (We are paying more interest than Spain and Italy for our borrowing because of his approach to taxes.) There is never going to be a success - for us - from this man. NEVER.
98
He has no leadership style. He rules by command based on impulse and instinct, not careful consideration and factual analysis. He is a child in an adult's body.
His entire career was characterized by one failure after another. He survived with bailouts from others - family and those who would use him for personal gain, like the Russian oligarchs.
His election was fraudulent and should have been revoked by the judicial and legislative process. Our democracy is worst for this error by our electorate and our institutions protecting the rule of law.
Someday, the violations that Trump and his supporters have commited will be analyzed and written about in historical context. We will learn that our democracy is a fragile concept that almost died under the authoritarian rule of this despotic individual.
100
@OscarPug...yes we and the rest of the world are learning a lesson. We have been naive about the 'wonderful American democracy'--once a role model for the world.
Other democracies are more advanced, with bettter representation of their citizens, with more political and economic balance despite their various problems.
And they don't turn their elections over to their corporate elites for financing. This gives the mass of average citizens more input into politics, which America lacks today. Research by Gilens and Page at Princeton shows that our mega donors make policy, leaving we the people out.
10
This article begins, "Donald J. Trump’s highly personal management style as a businessman — impetuous, impolitic, sometimes immature — worked."
I understand the desire to paint a contrast between then and now, but "worked"? Six bankruptcies is it? $400M inherited from his father? Whatever he accomplished in his business career was not due to his management.
The man was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.
13
Trump organization's VP shows Trump's Art of the Deal is a scam.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-terrible-negotiator_us_5c386d28e4b045f6768ae1f1
8
The GOP never vetted their boy. They watched old reruns of the Apprentice, which was about as far from reality as one could get and thought Donald was some sort of mogul. In reality, he was a guy who made a complete hash of every venture he ever attempted.
He squandered his father's nest egg and had to be bailed out multiple times. He couldn't get a loan from any American financial institution, he was so financially risky. That should have set off huge alarm bells--the guy could not have passed an FBI background check for a security clearance because his financial situation would have made him a candidate for blackmail.
He has no management skills. He is as incompetent as he is corrupt. So much winning. Thanks Putin.
22
@NJLatelifemom: The producer of The Apprentice said they'd shoot 300 hours of video to get one hour of airtime (or, actually, 42 minutes counting commercials). We could all look perfect under such circumstances.
I never watched The Apprentice. But when I heard that it had been running for some un-godly long time, like ten years or something, I then understood better the popularity of Trump. To many of his supporters he was 'real' and a billionaire strong man because of this made for tv reality show.
How very sad for our country that his conman ever reared his ugly 'perfect' persona and so many were conned by the most heavily produced con man of them all.
2
Anyone ascribing positive value to Tump's perceived decisiveness is ignoring the obvious prerequisite of knowledge on which to base those decisions. He seems to know an awful lot about "concrete plank" (look it up), but beyond that, his woeful lack of depth and dislike of reading have prepared him for this job no better than a sixth grader with a C+ average.
11
Trump doesn’t have a leadership style, except perhaps “bully.” He also doesn’t have the following:
1. Policies
2. Negotiating skills
3. Any idea of what diplomacy means or is
4. Any interest in governance
5. A basic understanding of the Constitution or of how our government actually works
He also doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself; he is quite literally the textbook definition of a narcissist. His so-called “leadership style,” or more accurately the lack of one, is the least of it.
30
He lives the "Apprentice" everyday. The scary part is he believes in his own myth.
5
"Mr. Trump ran his own private company." His own employees have said most of his deals were failures and he wasn't a good businessman. Con men don't work well in the White House.
16
Failed governance is exactly what his base wants. They are sick and tired of governance. That's why they found the most unqualified candidate they could and railroaded him through the primaries, flattening more likely opponents with a Marcusian brutality.
Now that he's there he's fulfilling their wishes, running professionals out of public service and fomenting the chaos that prevents the rest from getting anything done. Even the shutdown is part of this strategy to remove the federal government from its historic role in connecting our society so it can thrive.
That the base itself suffers from this does not matter to him, as long as it does not matter to them. This madness will end only when well-placed business leaders tell GOP Senators to make it end. But these lawmakers are by now largely owned by megarich individuals without much connection to the institutions of Wall Street. Could be a while.
6
From Fortune magazine:
"Donald Trump’s net worth has grown about 300% to an estimated $4 billion since 1987, according to a report by the Associated Press. But the real estate mogul would have made even more money if he had just invested in index funds. The AP says that, if Trump had invested in an index fund in 1988, his net worth would be as much as $13 billion.
"The S&P 500 has grown 1,336% since 1988.
"Other billionaires’ net worths have beaten the stock market’s growth in that time. Bill Gates, for example, saw his increase 7,173%, to $80 billion, since 1988. Warren Buffett’s wealth grew 2,612% in the same time period, to $67.8 billion."
Trump does not have a "management style." He's nothing but an unhinged imbecilic rich kid brat who's plowing through his daddy's money.
19
@Chris Everett
And those are the people we know about.
The President is stuck in his preferred modi operandi, campaign style, real estate dealmaker, reality TV huckster are on the menu. The only rewards for serving this President are narrowing down to some form of quiet departure (with the hope that no damage has been done to your reputation), slinking out the door before the ethics commission shows up, tweet-raged firing, tell all author and/or escaping to the welcoming arms of FOX News. You can just hear the potential candidates for all the mounting vacancies saying, "I want me some of that."
You are only as good as your weakest player. If the start of the Trump Presidency was the A-team, what letter are we on now? Good thing there are 24 letters in the alphabet. If he runs out we could go with Greek. Trump's administration is devolving into people that can survive in the President's menagerie. I can hardly wait for the Alpha and Beta teams.
4
Trump doesn't care about proper management procedures or whether the partial closure of Federal departments and agencies ever ends. As instructed by Putin, his goal is to destroy the American government, society and economy in exchange for forebearance on the massive debt Trump no doubt owes to Russian oligarchs.
11
It is a well-documented myth that he is a successful businessman. The myth is the reason we're in this crisis. By only one measure was he successful: he got rich.
8
@TAL I think he got no richer than what he started with; his bankruptcies and the refusal of American banks to lend him money speak to that. It seems quite likely that he is heavily leveraged, to foreign establishments.
9
@TAL: He didn't 'get' rich. He was born 'rich'. If it hadn't been for his daddy's money, his narcissism, his tv show and Russian oligarchs, he'd be a failed used car salesman somewhere in Queens.
5
Trump is fixing to find out that there's no bankruptcy protection in politics.
16
“A quality he seems to have is that he doesn’t care what other people think,” Mr. Pfeffer said.
Au contraire, mon ami. This may be grammatically dicey, but you could not be wrong. He cares obsessively about what other people think. Comments like "I have the best words...I know more than the generals...I'm a very stable genius" and his fealty to Limbaugh, Coulter, Fox News (save Chris Wallace) and his own base are hardly the traits of a guy brimming in self-confidence. I didn't know Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs was never a friend of mine, but Donald Trump is no Steve Jobs.
43
@Bob Hanle
I'll grant him this; he's the Salvador Dali of braggadocio.
By the way, in your second sentence, I believe you meant to say "you could not be more wrong."
“A quality he seems to have is that he doesn’t care what other people think...”
I'm not convinced of this. He seems to care very much what Fox News and his base think, to the point that it's detrimental to his overall success.
21
The core of Donald Trump's Business Model--or "MO," as law enforcement would term it--is reneging on agreements. There is no way this can work in international relations.
34
President Trump the successful businessman is an invention made possible by his father’s millions and Mark Burnett’s (producer of The Apprentice) showmanship. That Trump has not fired a single government official in person is proof; he is unable to utter his trademark line, “You’re fired,” except in speeches or via Twitter.
39
Everything pointed out is true. But all logic, facts, and analysis mean little as long as his base and Republic think he is worth it. And that is the most depressing fact.
21
@Terry The Republicans make a deal with the devil when they use race as a cudgel.
This time the devil is Donald whose racism is central to his character and self-identification.
Maybe sociology has an answer for us here.
1
In business, Trump had a flat management structure, where people reported directly to him. As staff turns over, Trump ends up being the person in place the longest, being able to assert that he knows more about an issue and has more practical authority to act than than anyone else. The model may work for the management of a real estate business, which is relatively simple. It does not work for running a democracy with a constitutional structure of checks and balances.
23
Trump is not a leader. He is a bully, a cheater and a con artist.
So please just stop give him any leadership qualities.
120
Bismarck said among other things "Politics is the art of compromise". I see none of that trait in Trump and cannot foresee a good outcome given his current rigid stance.
His management style is simply awful.
20
James B. Stewart is a natural to write about the lack of leadership in the White House. I compliment his citing Doris Kearns Goodwin's new book to advance his argument. However, an opinion piece like this should have appeared not long after you-know-who descended the golden stairway in Trump Tower in 2015. Many readers knew then that this man lacked the "chops" for the position he is currently so thoroughly abusing.
21
I can't imagine a more understated analysis of Trump's "management style." It's like calling a raging bull in a china shop an interior decorator with an unusual flair.
The point brushed up against is that Trump is manifestly unqualified for the job. He is also unsuited for the job, by temperament and faculty. Soft peddling that may have a diplomatic sound to effete intellectuals, but it misrepresents the gravity of the situation he presents. He's not an artiste, he's a tyrant.
129
"“A quality he seems to have is that he doesn’t care what other people think"
This is just wrong. He cares way too much about what people - his base - think.
He routinely insists other world leaders "like him."
He can't stand it if someone doesn't like him - and lashes out like a child.
63
But did his "leadership" style really work for him as a businessman? I recall reading that had he simply invested the money his daddy gave him, he'd have a lot more money now. Oh, and there's the little matter of those 6 bankruptcies. Trump said he'd run the country like he did his companies - Trump University, Trump Steaks, the casinos, Trump whatever - he shut em' all down. Now that he's shut down the government, can bankruptcy be far behind? On his book tour for The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis said he was most afraid of Trump deciding to default on our debt.
16
Where to even begin with all this..
Anyone who knew anything ..would know how unqualified Mr. Trump was for this.
Unfortunately..too many people (but still 3 million more than the electoral college) knew what was in store for the country...but we lost out.
I have friends and relatives who actually believed that he was a good business person. This includes my college educated friends and less educated relatives. They were fooled into believing he was a great business person. He's a fraud!!
I mean...my god..the writing was on the wall.. 4 bankruptcies..3 marriages...litigation..and that doesn't even scratch the surface of his personal behavior.
Lastly..I'm longing for the day that CNN can run the headline "You're Fired"...the day after the next presidential election, Nov 2020.
28
“A quality he seems to have is that he doesn’t care what other people think,” Mr. Pfeffer said.
———
Seriously? Trump’s whole narcissistic persona is based on exactly the opposite of that. He cares deeply about what others think of him, in a twisted, unconventional way. His rages and rants are all based on anger at the way he is perceived, which translates to caring about what others think of him.
26
Trump's "management" style is holding his breath until he turns blue and stamping his feet up and down up and down.
21
"Leadership style" is way too generous a descriptor.
10
@Snarky Mark ?? As is "management style".
3
Very simple answer: because he is not a leader
17
What if all the “leadership” pundits are wrong?
@Andrew...What if they are not? And I might add that after 2 years the lack of leadership should be obvious to anyone with a pulse.
13
It is not any different in his business life. It is wasn't for his father and the Russian mob he would be bankrupt.
22
I disagree with the fundamental premise of the article: that the "impetuous, impolitic, sometimes immature — worked."
Did it work?!
If you were one of the contractors who didn't get paid by him when he ran his business, did you think he would be a champion of the working class?
If you grew up in New York in the 1980s and saw his marital life turned into a tabloid circus, did you think he would be a good role model?
If you went to Atlantic City in the 1990s and you saw his name emblazoned on buildings, did you think he would be an exemplar of restraint and humility?
What I knew was this: This is a guy who likes to be heard and who knows how to get the cameras to pay attention to him.
All of these questions and impressions have borne fruit (fruit, for the sake of pun, which cannot be inspected!) during this shutdown--and the previous 23 months.
I think we got what we should have expected here; there were few surprises on a gut level. It's true, I never expected his real estate legacy would translate to politics and I never thought it would go on this long or get this scary. But the style, the flair, the ego--sadly, none of it should be a surprise. And we will rue our collective inability to take notice for generations to come.
29
“This past year with still more churn, the total turnover rate hit 83 percent, according to the Brookings Institution, which is tracking personnel moves at the White House. No other president has come close in his first two years.”
Finally: the “winning” he promised.
18
Business and government are NOT the same, do NOT have the same goals, and do NOT involve the same skill set. Business has one goal: profit. The head of a company has a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of the company. Government, by contrast, acts in the best interest of the people. Those interests differ day to day, and interest group to interest group. What is in the best interests of PA may not be in the best interests of Georgia. In addition, a President is subject to the oversight of Congress, and is bound by laws governing how funds are spent.
Trump is used to being the head of his company, and can act against the interests of the company to favor his own interests. He can make pronouncemens and expect them to be obeyed. Here, he must use diplomacy and negotiate, two skills that seem to be lacking.
13
" ... Mr. Trump displayed some positive qualities of effective leadership, such as ... self-confidence." But in many cases, confidence and competence are inversely related. Chutzpah is no replacement for judgement, credibility and character.
16
45 said during his campaign that he would run the country the same way he ran his business. Now we know why he filed bankruptcy so many times. Guess this means promise made, promise kept. So sad.
23
Excellent article. The fact is that Trump is a poor businessman and manager. His image as a savvy businessman was created by the "reality" TV series The Apprentice which was carefully edited to make Trump look like a poor person's image of how a rich and successful person acts. In reality he is a walking personification of the saying: "How do you make a small fortune? Start with a large one" (which he inherited from his father).
41
He runs the presidency as if it were niche product, but it's not: it's a mass-market product. I believe that if he understood that, he'd find a way to generate 60% approval ratings easily enough.
1
About that reality distortion field - I worked in a number of startups and quite often you could just SEE the founders mulling over an idea for their product in their own mind and then confidently proclaiming it as truth and something they had ALWAYS said and it existed in the product RIGHT NOW. Unfortunately it usually wasn't and left everyone scrambling to try to backfill the new reality. Trump has exhibited the behavior all his life. WHY people put up with it baffles me.
13
I don't find this critique well centered. Government is about a nation helping itself to be better, or as the US and many other countries probably view it - to be better off. In any case, it means marshaling a society to work cooperatively together for mutual betterment. But these comments from Jeffrey Pfeffer, the most cited authority in the article, about personal winning have really nothing to do with running an enterprise which by its very nature requires the broadest possible co-operation. There is a hugely important distinction here that seems quite lost in the obsessive culture of the worship of winning. As I've said many times, Mr. Trump, for all his dreadful faults is merely a symptom of a much wider problem which this article seems in some sense to demonstrate.
12
Universal healthcare is an ambitious goal. It's a better one than a wall.
55
"Humility, acknowledging errors, shouldering blame and learning from mistakes, empathy, resilience, collaboration, connecting with people and controlling unproductive emotions.” These are not just qualities of effective leaders, but of healthy, and well-adjusted people. These qualities are not all that rare or unique. Just clearly lacking in our President.
69
@Marc
They are certainly rare in the Republican party.
Not sure where Pfeffer got the idea that Trump “doesn’t care what people think.” He’s preoccupied with that. He’s also uncomfortable with conflict and confrontation and, as a result, has limited skills for dealing with it.
37
The importance of large-scale organizational management experience is too often missed in choosing a president. Give me a Bloomberg or Romney, not someone who ran a business with fewer employees than a corner deli.
16
@Jack I am a retiree who spent half of my career in a large public company and the other half in a multi-national private company that grew rapidly from middle market to $1+ billion. Having seen the contrast, I am very skeptical about whether management skills gained running a private company can be successfully employed in a government position. It is easy for owners of companies to think that they can do whatever they want as they do not have to answer to the SEC or shareholders. This can be the case even with large organizations. Private equity folks can suffer from the same problem - as an example, Bruce Rauner couldn't get anything done in 4 years as governor of Illinois (and lost his re-election campaign as a result).
4
I am quite disappointed in this column. President Trump was not a successful businessman. He had numerous failed businesses, bankruptcies, broken commitments, and failures to deliver on promises. His company could not get loans from the top US banks.
Not sure how one could call him "decisive" considering how quickly his stories change. He sets ambitious goals but seems clueless as to how to meet these goals. Elon Musk sets ambitious goals also but has had a lot more success meeting them.
The president does indeed have self confidence. His one claim to success is his selling skills, which work on people desperately seeking relief from their problems. That's how he won the presidency. But calling him a good businessman is an affront to the business world.
202
His leadership style is called "blackmail". Do this or I'll go bankrupt. Do that or I'll close the government. Ad infinitum. Government works by win-win negotiations. Trump can't comprehend win-win. If the other side gets anything, he's left something that should be his on the table. We're in for a long two years.
128
Second only to trickle-down economics in absurdity, is the idea that government should be run like a business. This is particularly true today, when businesses position themselves as only being answerable to their shareholders. If the analogy were consistent, we, the people would be the shareholders – not the workers, and certainly not the consumers. The measure of profit to the shareholders (us) would not be in dollars, but in a healthy, secure society. Our investment (taxes) are not showing this return. As a society, we are experiencing increasing anxiety about our own futures, and the future of the environment. The Washington kleptocrats are trying to brand immigrants as the competition, trying to steal our security and our "culture." The reality is closer to our slowly having our generous ideals eroded by a campaign designed to hide the quest for power displayed by a meretricious would-be CEO, who is expert only at fraud and misdirection. In an approximation of the words of Reagan: Business cannot solve the problem, Business is the problem. Consider how you would feel if someone said: "I'm from business, and I'm here to help."
78
@michaeltide
Very well said
4
Trump is keeping his promise. He said he would run the country like he runs his business. Unfortunately.
207
@Tom
Trump is keeping his promise. He said he would ruin the country like he ruins his businesses.
The US is degrading at an abysmal rate, but hopefully She will recover after this terrible is gone by the next election!
3
@Tom
You can't say the man has not kept his word.
2
In addition to all of Mr. Trump's managerial shortcomings noted in this article, you can add a lack of speed to market.
He had two years of unified Republican government to accomplish his top priorities.
Perhaps less time rallying and golfing and more time working might have helped.
165
@PAC
Golfing was his top priority and he accomplished it very well during his first two years. He set records for days golfing in fact. So under that measure he is a great manager.
His next priority was to destroy the effectiveness of the American government so that the Russian government could gain global advantage. He is well on his way to achieving that goal as well. So according to standard business critique he is doing a great job.
Maybe what we need is a whole new way to do business in this country.
8
Why is it that we all have to suffer the ravages of existing under "the same old same old". that means, why does an administration have to exactly the same as the one that preceded it. I think that, eventually, we have to shake up the "same old, stale norm", Remember, "variety is the spice of life".
1
@slwjkw 'tried, but true' beats 'new and unproductive' every time.
14
@slwjkw
There is no suggestion of what you protest in this column. The column is about the ineffectiveness of Trump's management style. Whether it's new or old is totally beside the point. Dumping a pound of pepper in the stew would certainly make it spicy and different but also totally inedible.
14
But is it variety or ignorance? The second one can be fatal.
5
One key to Trump's business style is that he got to chose whom he we would work with, losing people that he had ripped off along the way, with little consequence. In government, he has to deal with people he cannot walk away from without visible consequences. On the other hand he has adapted from a world where greed for money is replaced by greed for power. This has created political allies that will put up with anything. That has proven rather effective.
9
If Congress does not remove or put controls on this manifestly unfit President, the system of checks and balances in which we take so much pride will have failed us.
45
Mr. Trump is an easy "mark" for the Democrats in 2020. All of Trump's core personality traits are election liabilities. But, to knock-off Trump, the Democrats will need a vigorous, competent, socially engaging (preferably younger) candidate who has the discipline not to be drawn-in by every Trump tweet but is still able to parry Trump when the electorate in engaged, during debates, for example. By the way, GOP candidates who might challenge Trump, take note. Oh, and no criminal behavior either.
38
@J. Colby
Trump is not an easy mark in 2020. He is a masterful con man and a shrewd crook who played the entire media and the conservative public like a violin. He has only learned more technique in the white house and will many surprises up his sleeve for whoever the Democrats nominate. We live in a corrupt country and Donald is the king of corruption. The Dems will have to find a crook smarter than Trump with more money than the Koch's who can make that bully pulpit sing. So far their offerings are looking slim.
@Bobotheclown
Bob, I agree with your characterization of Trump (and each of your other points). I'm hopeful that the Democrats have learned something in the last two years too. But, after seeing Schumer and Pelosi after Trump's Oval Office con, you may be right.