Election 2024 – Doing a Judgment Call Audit
The most important hidden-in-plain-sight criteria for president
One of my favorite books about leadership is Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls by Noel Tichy and my late and greatly missed mentor Warren Bennis.
Their research showed that the better the leader, the better the outcome of their judgment calls regarding three key areas:
Strategy
People
Crisis
As we view the Presidential candidates from both parties, are we not ignoring the most important deciding factor that is hidden in plain sight?
And that is, what have been their judgment calls throughout their political careers and perhaps dating back well before when it came to strategy, people and crisis? And how did they work out?
To that end I am suggesting that we do a Judgment Call Audit on all of the Presidential candidates as follows:
Strategy – throughout your professional career what strategies did you specifically come up with and also which ones did you endorse to address problems that you were responsible for solving? And what was the short term and long term outcome of each?
People – throughout your professional career who have you hired to work with you, for you or voted in to serve your constituency and how did they perform in the short and long term, how did they work out in general, and how was their performance measured?
Crisis - throughout your professional career what decisions and strategies did you come up with or support during crises and how did those work out in the short and long term?
Why is it that something as obvious as the above has not been tried?
It’s possible that they were not so obvious.
Or… perhaps there is something else at play that is reminiscent of the adage: “there is no honor among thieves.”
Perhaps there is a collusion between candidates and the electorate where the candidates unconsciously say, “Psst… hey! We won’t hold you responsible for your actions or hold you accountable for your decisions and judgment calls if you won’t do the same with us. Deal?”