This article is co-authored with D. Christopher Kayes
The idea of a corporate executive turning into a politician and policymaker is gaining momentum. Starbucks’ Howard Shultz has teased his interest in running for president, following in the footsteps of entrepreneur/reality TV star Mark Cuban and celebrity media titan Oprah Winfrey. Yet, one wonders whether leading corporations results in great preparation for the world of politics and policy making. Perhaps it only makes the newly minted politician particularly vulnerable to the limits of political life and ventures.
The obvious pitfalls and challenges have been illustrated by a number of the business leaders who have taken the lead in government. The Trump administration itself may serve as a reminder of these challenges. Several of his business turned policy appointees have resulted in censure, premature resignation or firing. Those drawbacks are repeated in state and local governments as business leaders recast themselves as politicians.
As professors who have taught leadership for some two decades, we have seen at least three important reasons why business leaders often fail when working in the policy or political arena—no matter their altruistic intentions or their experience inside Fortune 500 companies.
First, business leaders are accustomed to operational efficiencies where disorganization is handled with a brutal proficiency. The checks and balances, accountability and oversight found in government are ingrained into the policy apparatus and can drain the effectiveness and speed of seemingly feasible solutions.
The resignation of former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, after a little more than a year in office, reveals the woes of shifting from business to politics, and trying to manage a massive overhaul of an unfamiliar institution. Tillerson was trained to understand operational efficiency from the standpoint of engineering. His approach to safety at ExxonMobil set the industry standard for operational safety and was adopted outside the industry. But it’s clear that these efficiencies were not transferable to the State Department, which pretty much shelved his much-discussed reorganization…
