Lynn Espinoza is a broadcast news veteran with more than a decade of media, presentation and executive coaching experience. She has developed personal coaching sessions for Fortune 100 C-level executives, corporate communicators of all kinds, doctors, lawyers and leaders in non-profit.
Straight Talk Depress
Posted on September 19, 2008. Filed under: Latest News
Christmas, for me, comes once every four years. I bathe in the political season - all 18 months of it. I love the oratory, the drama and of course those “you can’t make up this stuff” surprises. I marvel at the maneuvering, and snicker at the snide. I also watch closely for the cues that I can use for discussion and example for my executive clients: Content vs. Character, and the power of displaying both.
I’m not seeing enough of either - from anyone - and I’ve boarded the Straight Talk Depress.
In the corporate world, sometimes issues are such that the CEO doesn’t need to be the sole voice for the company. Sometimes a closer-to-the-ground worker is most appropriate to speak on behalf of the CEO. And at times it’s even appropriate for a corporate mid-level to do some “dirty work” - addressing the competition in a way that minimizes the negative blowback on the CEO directly. And that’s just what we’re seeing in this election season. The respective armies Obama and McCain are out in force, digging and dishing - with the sole purpose of disemboweling the enemy.
But if ever there were a time to silence the armies and hear more directly from the “CEO” - this is it. This country is in a really dark place, and we need a leader. The Daschles, Fiorinas, Pawlentys and Braziles can hurl memorable and witty insults back and forth until they’re blue. They have equal ability to bloviate hollow key messages and fail to answer questions. They aren’t hurting each other so much as they are hurting us.
If the candidates themselves have something negative to say (and I don’t mean pithy stump lines, I mean the kind of bile that their surrogates spew) - let’s hear them say it. If they can sit under hot television lights and brutally disassemble the character of the other - let’s see it. Then we can hold them accountable for it.
Why don’t they do it? Because it is conduct unbecoming a leader and, well, because so much of it is simply not true. Keep them from hiding behind their pitbulls (lipsticked or not) to the degree that they are, and I’m betting the campaign would take a dramatically more positive and issues-driven turn. Stand down the surrogate armies, and turn up the substance.
Both campaigns need the right spokesperson. The CEO.
All aboard!
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