President’s practices ‘trickle’ to underlings

Is trickle-down turning into a downpour? No, I am not referring to the unproven economic theory that money saved by reducing taxes on the very wealthy will “trickle down” to everyone else. I am referring to the “trickle down” that occurs when someone in any organization has paid close attention to what the people above them say or do, then acts in a way to curry upper-level executives’ attention and approval.

Experienced administrators have learned that careless words and actions can result in disastrous words and actions by people several layers down in the organization. They have also learned that misunderstood words or unclear policies can cause them to have to drop everything to “clean up a mess.” As a result, most administrators have learned to be very careful about what they say and do. Few administrators who have not learned this survive long enough to reach executive-level positions.

Unfortunately, our current president, unlike most senior executives or the generals he once seemed so fond of, didn’t have to work his way up through the ranks, and didn’t benefit by learning from his early mistakes. Instead, he woke up one day to learn he was president of a family-owned business he could rule like a small-country dictator. To build name recognition for his “brand” in the New York media he learned he had to do and say things that attracted attention. Doing this resulted in widespread name recognition, including his being featured on the cover pages of magazines and his being asked to star in a prime-time TV program. Since this strategy worked for him in New York, he has continued to use it as president.

Because he doesn’t hold regular meetings with his cabinet heads in which he uses them as sounding boards, they often learn about something he has said or tweeted when a reporter asks them about it. In former Republican or Democratic administrations this was a very rare occurrence because those presidents and their cabinet heads and other top executives communicated regularly, especially about topics likely to become controversial.

Again, because he follows a “boss-subordinate “approach to working with his direct reports, subordinates quickly learn to “do as you are told” and “don’t ask questions.” Key staff don’t feel comfortable checking with him and so they go ahead and say things or initiate policy changes that go along with what they believed were his intentions. If, as a result of this, they initiate some unethical, unlawful or unworkable action that results in a firestorm of negative publicity, the president, who is more concerned about his own image than about his supporters’ careers, usually denies any knowledge or responsibility for their acts and leaves them high and dry.

Two of the consequences of this repeated behavior are unprecedented turnover in direct reports and for his cabinet heads and other key support staff to become very reluctant to do their jobs, further reinforcing his notion of an imperial presidency.

JIM HAMMONS Fayetteville