Honolulu Civil Beat

https://www.civilbeat.org/2025/03/we-need-leaders-who-artfully-raise-hell-think-jack-burns-or-dan-inouye/

March 9, 2025

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Over the years, I have had the privilege of interceding in conflicts ranging from two adult cousins from feuding families on O‘ahu who got into a brawl at a wedding, to helping sort out compensations in a mine contamination case affecting the food security of 50,000 indigenous people in Papua New Guinea.

I love helping people communicate and negotiate and when I see people end a tough fight and reach a peaceful accord, the world feels slightly improved. Not every negotiation works out, but mediated problem solving has also afforded me and my colleagues a unique perch to witness some of the best and worst actual moves leaders make when the pressure is on.

Leadership isn’t an easy kuleana and leaders do many things. They manage finances and risks. They formulate and execute North Star strategies. They create, refine, manage or improve services and products. They negotiate settlements and hire, inspire and fire people.

They also try to live out core values. Not the abstract statements on poster boards in the lunch room, but real “values-in-action” choices.

Setting Aside Grievances

It was a pugnacious U.S. senator who brought this home for me. It happened during a bipartisan symposium on “Political Courage and the Power of Bridge-Building” I moderated when I was CEO of The Keystone Center.

The panel of speakers was exceptionally experienced: Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho); Reps. Nancy Johnson (R-Connecticut) and Ed Case (D-Hawai‘i); National Public Radio’s Ron Elving; and the Heritage Foundation’s senior fellow, John Hulsman.

Former U.S. Sen. Larry Craig. (Courtesy U.S. Senate Historical Office)

In that conversation, there was considerable handwringing over the decline of bipartisanship and civility. There were a few hopeful stories about the still optimistic idea of working together across ideologies, party lines, and self-interests.

But Sen. Craig reminded everyone that politics is a full-body contact sport that stirs things up and always produces winners and losers.

Craig described how America’s political system is constitutionally designed to foster argument rather than settle it and that it forces people to take sides. He agreed with Mao Zedong: “Politics is war without bloodshed.”

I brooded on Craig’s ideas, not because he was wrong, but because they were incomplete. It’s the half of the story that gets all the attention. In a vibrant political system we need people who challenge the status quo and raise some hell. But we also need the other half: leaders who will artfully and diplomatically confront the squalls, build bridges and help find solutions.

Faced with an obstinate dispute, I have watched some leaders set aside petty grievances, work to understand their opponent’s needs, stay focused on what is possible and achieve startlingly fresh agreements. At the other end of the spectrum, some in high positions are obsessed with power and follow the traditions of the first Mayor Daley, Jimmy Hoffa, Boss Tweed and Roy Cohen.

Our darker politics go like this: Blame others. Demand obedience. Deny accusations. Reward your friends and kneecap your enemies. Never concede, apologize or explain and in the face of impending adversity, delay. Some Democrats, Republicans and independents use these same practices.

When Bill Clinton was running for president, James Carville, his electoral consigliere, had an interesting addition: “When you see your opponent drowning, throw the S.O.B. an anvil.”

Donald Trump isn’t the only one who does all this. He’s just in the spotlight all the time and obsessed with winning. His weird, ham-handed intervention with Ukraine and Russia gives honest brokering a bad name. You don’t play favorites, talk with one side only, predetermine the outcome, and extort one side for valuable mineral goodies for yourself.

Leaders in Hawaiʻi tend to be more subtle than Donald Trump.

Some leaders of enterprises in the public, private or civil sectors seem able to work in principled and respectful ways and be both savvy and successful in their political maneuverings to get big things accomplished. Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson did. So did FDR, JFK, Jack Burns and Daniel Inouye.

Here in Hawai‘i and influenced heavily by Asian and Polynesian traditions, leaders tend to be more subtle than Trump. Even our most ambitious power seekers are smart enough to be more restrained. They blend their moves in ways that obscure rather than spotlight their more self-serving ambitions.

There is an especially powerful conversation about leadership in the movie “Invictus” that is based on a 2008 book by John Carlin called “Playing the Enemy.” I use that movie clip in some workshops and training programs.

Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon plays Francois Pienaar, a local businessman who is also captain of South Africa’s largely white and mostly mediocre national rugby team, the Springboks.

Mandela invites Pienaar to his office for tea and Pienaar doesn’t really know why he is there but it quickly comes clear. Mandela has an agenda. He wants South Africa to triumph and play strong in the 1995 Rugby World Cup competition. The country, he says, needs inspiration.

The dialogue between Mandela and Pienaar centers, not on rugby, but on the deeper philosophic yet very practical questions they both are wrestling with: How can they motivate people to accomplish more than they think they can? Mandela and Pienaar do it through inspiration. But there are also other ways.

Here is what I have seen some leaders do in the face of tough conflicts. Some help people find compatible interests or discover a common vision. Others create new procedures for the future and humanize relationships. Still others reach agreements in principle or find a common foe that unites them.

There is a Japanese proverb that says “The go-between wears out a thousand sandals.” A shrewd leader also knows that whatever comes of their rubber slipper work, someone will always be disappointed. They will argue the decision was premature, wrong-headed, insufficient or bad.

That’s the burden leaders take on. Steve Jobs put it this way: “If you want to make everyone happy, don’t be a leader, sell ice cream.”