Emotional Intelligence, The Presidency, And Professionalism
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/15/opinion/emotions-feelings-intelligence.html
I’ve been wanting to write a blog trying to grasp why the Harris campaign has seemed to take off with an energy all its own. Then I read this David Brooks op-ed from The New York Times on Friday, August 16 and a few things came together for me.
I’ve written a couple of pieces about why I think the support for Donald Trump is so enthusiastic and sustained. To his followers he represents their emotional state surrounding perceived adverse changes to their lives they blame on border policy, immigration, and identity politics. I even received an email from a Trump supporter warning me about tampon machines in the boys’ bathrooms of my grandsons’ school if Harris wins. That’s kind of the level of the raw emotion permissible under Trump.
When Joe Biden was the putative nominee of the Democratic Party, his followers’ emotions were at best tolerance. There was genuine fear that a Biden candidacy would mean a Trump win—almost a no-contest after their first debate. Since Biden has stepped aside, the Democrats are bathing in joy. Harris and Walz emanate good feelings and a can-do attitude that contrasts mightily with Trump’s America of doom and gloom that only he can fix.
Here’s how Brooks put it:
“The difference between the two candidates’ emotional profiles could not have been starker. Harris was exuberant, joyful, a volcano of positive emotions—even when she was talking about being a prosecutor. Trump was combative, embattled, indignant, a volcano of negative emotions—even when talking about how much his crowds love him.”
Brooks’ point is that how you make people feel may be more important than what you actually are able to do. As Maya Angelou has said: “people will never forget the way you make them feel.”
I think what the Trump camp cannot seem to grasp, just as the Biden camp could not understand Trump’s attractiveness to his followers, is that all the Democrats needed was Biden gone and a new, younger, joyous face in. Harris has wisely made use of her momentum of good will. She may even ride it to the White House if she can have a good convention, have a good debate, and avoid missteps including those in the area of foreign policy still controlled by Mr. Biden. A war in Iran that goes badly could change everything.
As a digression, let’s consider the same dynamic at MD Anderson where a president, unpopular with the faculty and very distant, has chosen to use the clinical apparatus of the cancer center as a piggy bank for his own personal gain (that outrageous salary) and surely brings no joy to the job with him when he uses “professionalism” as a weapon on faculty who just might be using their own emotional intelligence to try to solve problems in ways to which others object and thus label “unprofessional.”
I will say that the first two Anderson presidents under whom I served definitely brought a sense of decorum and to some extent the joy of service to their leadership of Anderson. Both were overtaken by events they could not maneuver around, but at least at the outset of their tenures, they tried to buoy the emotions of the faculty with the promise of excellence.
Emotions do matter in politics whether the political environment is a country or an academic institution. If a leader can bring joy and optimism to the table, even if the finances have looked better, that leader has a better chance at success. And I believe it is the contrasting attitudes of Harris vs. Trump that may make the difference.
Emotional intelligence matters.
