Special Topics

Type and Politics: Election 2008

Commentary from Hile Rutledge, CEO (February 2008):

If you have interest in leadership and type, keep your eyes on the US Presidential race shaping up. Politics is a complex soup, but while it is not—of course—the driving issue, type certainly plays an important role in our political decisions and in any given politician’s brand and relationship with the public. The following ideas are projections and intellectual ponderings concerning public figures who have opted for a life lived center stage, and my thoughts are offered free of any judgment concerning policy, ideology or party affiliation.

In the last 30 years—given what we either know or tend to conclude about the folks we have elected President, the US electorate clearly finds favor with Extraversion over Introversion and Feeling over Thinking.

• Reagan (often projected to have been an ENFJ) wins twice.
• George H. W. Bush (identified as a Feeling decider by a subset of his staff) beats Dukakis, whose preferences were more than likely Introversion and Thinking, but then Bush loses to Bill Clinton, who took the indicator and disclosed preferences for ENFP.
• Bill Clinton wins twice, next beating Bob Dole, whose preferences are likely Introversion and Thinking.
• George W. Bush, whose preferences I believe to be both Extraversion and Feeling, wins the White House twice—first by beating Al Gore, whose preferences have been disclosed to be INTJ and then John Kerry, whose preferences are more than likely INTJ also (though some type scholars have made a compelling argument for INTP).

One conclusion I draw from this thirty-year snapshot is that in this modern political era when elections are fought out on television over long periods of time, candidates whose preferences are for Extraversion (focusing on external concerns and drawing energy from connection and communication) and for Feeling judgments (making decisions based on empathic, circumstantial weighing of human-centered values) tend to have an advantage when compared to those whose preferences are for Introversion and/or Thinking judgments.

This brings us to this year’s election:

• John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, seems to me to prefer Extraversion—he is consistently talkative, disclosing and emotionally expressive. I believe he also shows a tendency for Thinking decision making—talking tough (telling Michigan primary voters that their jobs had gone and were not coming back), driving around the “Straight-Talk Express,” and seeming to relish the fights he invites as a maverick—even within his own Republican party.
• Hillary Clinton, one of the two front-runners on the Democratic side has taken the indicator and disclosed her INTJ preferences.
• Barack Obama is harder to read for me, but my personal projection is that his preferences are INFP (though a career-long tendency to network, speak and build communities could support a preference for Extraversion). My saying his preference is for Feeling is rooted in his desire to collaborate, accept and find common ground with everyone.
• Obama’s brand is about bridge-building (F); whereas Hillary Clinton’s brand seems more about fighting, winning and managing (TJ).

All this said, let’s see how type plays out in the election that stands before us.

• Will McCain’s preference for Extraversion give him any edge over his Introverted opponents?
• If Obama were to win the Democratic nomination, Obama’s Feeling preference would run up against McCain’s hard truth-telling “Straight Talk Express” (T). Recent history suggests the that the Feeling decider’s harmonious, bridge-building and empathy would give Obama an edge—but would it be enough to compensate for the connection that voters tend to have for the extraverted McCain?
• If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, we would have an Extravert (McCain) running against an Introvert/Thinking decider (Clinton), and should Hillary Clinton win, she would be the first Introvert to beat an Extravert in over 30 years—thus making history in a few ways.

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Experiential Learning: A Ropes Exercise

In this eight-minute audio recording, Hile Rutledge describes a Ropes exercise we often use with consulting clients. The audio clip includes a description of the exercise, and tips for effectively debriefing it with a group. Press play (triangle symbol) on the graphic below, or right click on this link to save the mp3 file to your computer: Audio File: Ropes Exercise (large file: 1.4 MB). This interview was originally recorded by the team at Leadership Connection for Childcare Professionals.

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New Tools and Approaches

PMAI. Here, we provide data from a group being introduced to the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator™ (PMAI™). In the exercise, each of the 12 archetypes highlighted by the PMAI had a work station, and each workshop participant was asked to go to the 3 or 4 archetypes to which they most connected and answer the following: "When I am being guided by this archetype: What does it feel like? What motivates me when I am there? What does it look and sound like?" Link to March 2008 Class Output.

KGI. The Klein Group Instrument (KGI) was created to assist people in acquiring skills to become more effective leaders as well as group participants. A powerful self-report instrument, it assesses people’s preferred ways of functioning in four domains: group leadership, negotiation, task focus, and interpersonal focus. A group of consultants and trainers studying to use the KGI took six of the nine KGI subscales and derived a number of potential leadership and team actions that could be taken to elicit better group functioning: Link to August 2007 Class Output.

Special Focus on the Leadership Spectrum Profile (LSP)

Organization Development, Type, and Project Management