Self-awareness in a leader, like any quality, can be used for good or not-good.
Republican presidential candidate Mit Romney is awake enough to know that some of his "passionate" policy positions as Governor of Massachusetts, if carried into the '08 race, would make him look more like Rudi than Ronald. So he used that awareness for not-so-good in two ways: to don a new costume--one that helps him with the conservatives--and then to cover his tracks.
He covers by rationalizing his 180-degree shifts using a leadership strength as a fig leaf to mask his
about-faces. It's something that is both annoying to me as a leadership development professional, and an ominous sign of how he would potentially lead the nation. After all, as it's been said: Anything you do is a hologram of everything you do.
His fig leaf:
"If people in this country are looking for someone who's never made a mistake on a policy issue and is not willing to admit they're ever wrong, why then they're going to have to find somebody else..." (Mit Romney, CNN Republican Debate, November, 2007)
Just consider:
- 180 on Pro-Choice for Abortion
- 180 on Gay rights
- 180, then a second 180 on Stem Cell Research
- Kind of a 135 on polluting sources of energy (before anti-, now not-so-anti)
Indeed it's a leadership strength to admit you're wrong, and I applaud and support leaders who do that--in moderation! But stack enough "I was wrongs" on top of each other, and it's beginning to look a lot like opportunism. That ominous opportunism is Romney's "O-factor".
His about-faces on issues make one less likely to applaud his epidemic of admitting he was wrong, and more likely to wonder: If we elect him, who or what will he then be trying to please and fit in with? His religion? His "Carl Rove"? Will we know? Are all of the core values he reflected as a candidate negotiable?
Mit has no corner on the opportunism market among politicians. Yet these costume changes are hardly new/different shades of the same cloth. They are true turnabouts in character, ones that seem to reflect someone willing to show--then try to hide--a lack of authenticity in his desperation to be elected.
So Mit, not to put too fine a point on it, but please stop using a leadership strength like being able to admit you're wrong as a fig leaf to cover up your O-factor, okay?
I'd appreciate it!
