Hillary’s Peen-Ultimate Leadership Mistake

By Gloria Feldt | April 8, 2008 |

The worst mistakes I’ve made in life and leadership have always involved waiting too long to fire someone.

Whether I’m hanging onto a relationship long after love is gone or hanging onto an employee long after positive value to the organization has diminished beyond the point of return, my loyalty tends to trump my better sense. And like most women, including it appears, Hillary Clinton, I always think I can fix the situation. That I can retrain, redo the job description, or refocus the person’s priorities so his or her performance will magically improve. After all, maybe it was my fault; I didn’t provide sufficient direction or support to tease out their talents. Surely if I did, Ms or Mr. X would shine again.

Women are particularly sensitive to the connective filaments in the web of relationships that make up our organizations, just as we’re sensitive to them within our families. We counsel our kids to eat Aunt Ida’s hideous orange jello, carrot, and horseradish salad because she’s such a good soul after all. Past contributions, we think, deserve to be recognized, good intent respected

These qualities serve women well, until they don’t, as has been the case with Clinton and her top advisors. Many said she kept Patti Solis Doyle as her campaign manager out of loyalty (and perhaps fear of what the firing would do to her relationships with Hispanics) long after Solis Doyle’s effectiveness had waned.

And then there’s Mark Penn.

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Why Patti not Mark?

By Gloria Feldt | February 11, 2008 |

From today’s Washington Post report on the resignation of Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle: “But for all the efforts to expand the operation, Democratic strategists said the Clinton campaign remains opaque, even to those on the outside willing to be helpful. “They have more walls around them than you’ve seen in many castles,” said one prominent Democrat.

So can anyone tell me why was Patti Solis Doyle moved out when it should have been Mark Penn who was given the boot? His leaden instincts on message and campaign strategy, as evidenced by how poorly he has served her in his own media comments, are Hillary’s biggest albatross.

Hillary is so great at connecting with people when she loosens up and goes with her own instincts. That ability is the basis of Barack’s charm. She whizzes past him when it comes to grasp of the issues and specific policy measures. She needs to loosen the consultants’ corset that has been binding her campaign in harmful ways, starting with Penn.

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