It is always important to evaluate the character of leaders.  This is particularly important now in every country (I am most familiar with the U.S. and Canada. Perhaps some of my readers will contribute thoughts about other countries with which they are familiar).

This is especially important when decision makers such as politicians and business people talk about “making the tough decisions.”  I expect we will hear this phrase often as employment suffers as a result of the Trump tariffs. I wonder what they mean, and whether they consider deeply the emotional impact upon the people affected by those decisions, and upon themselves.  I wonder whether the business person who “regrets” layoffs or pension reductions, or the politician who announces benefit cuts for the poor, has an intuitive, empathetic understanding of the effects.  I wonder whether such a person has “been there,” i.e., has been in the kind of situation which is now affected.  I wonder whether that person spends any time being with affected people in their daily lives.

I read (for example, The New Urban Crisis:  How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class– and What We Can Do About It, by Richard L. Florida) that  higher-level decision-makers in business are much likelier to live in neighbourhoods among only people like themselves, in contrast to the 1950s, when managers were quite likely to live next door to, or in a street close to, the employees. Greatly separated now, they are unlikely to understand intuitively the effects of their “tough decisions.”

But, perhaps they volunteer in a foodbank, or visit lonely people in hospitals or nursing homes, or are very active in charitable and community-service groups, and so spend time with people affected.  Perhaps these experiences lead them to diminish harsh effects, showing that they do understand the “tough” quality of their decisions.  They understand what the feelings of affected people are; they understand what their own feelings do to their own concept of themselves.

I know from years of volunteer activity in politics at all levels, that many politicians have never had other careers, and therefore have not themselves been affected by such decisions. Being people of means and not so subject to circumstances as the people they affect, no matter how empathetic they may be, they can’t quite feel the consequences as do people who haven’t such resources:  it’s one thing to hand out food at a local foodbank while knowing a fine dinner awaits you at home, but quite another to receive it as your only substance for perhaps a week.

So I doubt that the “toughness” of the decisions has quite the same meaning for the deciders as for those affected.  Those who make no efforts to be among the affected, cannot possibly understand the “toughness” of their decisions, and deserve no credit or warm thoughts for their willingness to make such decisions.  If they have no empathy at all, they deserve scorn for presuming to make such decisions, and for claiming credit for their “toughness.” 

Angela Merkel is a good example of understanding the consequences of her decisions.  As she developed Germany’s policies regarding the huge influx of refugees, she drew upon not only her experience as an escapee from communist East Germany, but also upon the advice of 86 immigrant groups (Freedom:  Memoirs 1954-2021). This is a strong kind of informed consent, in which the decision-maker intuits the effect of a potential decision, and then consents.  Such efforts by other decision-makers to spend time with affected people, not just with advisers and “experts,” would be highly respectable, and would give validity to the claim of “tough decisions.”  That would be wonderful for democracy.

In a democracy, making decisions too easily, without understanding and empathy for those affected, is destructive.  Warding off harm from decisions should be done not only by critics, but by the very gut of the decision maker.  Such actions should diminish the willingness to make the next “tough” decision. These are the values of emotionally informed consent.¹

There is a religious teaching, “Be as wise as a serpent, and as innocent as a dove,” which I have understood to mean, “understand how the game is played by others, but don’t play it that way yourself.” This is particularly useful in public politics, and in the internal politics of organizations and groups, and in dealing with both competition and cooperation. In international relations, it at the very least requires a leader to take a step back and look at the big picture and the expected outcomes, rather than join in the game in progress.

Morality, along with good judgement and an intuitive feeling for other human beings, together may be a definition of character.

Character in a politician involves having civic ideals which invest as much concern for their governed and for other political bodies (such as another province or country), as for their own political careers. It involves a willingness and ability, in thinking about potential policies, to consider the ethics of those acts, the effects on everyone and everything touched by the policy, and to allow feelings about those consequences to enter the unconscious and roll around a while in the gut, before assenting to, or promoting a policy. It involves holding as little confidential and secret as possible, because being secretive toward others makes it impossible to be honest with yourself. This character is something we should seek in our politicians and in their advisers and political operatives around them.

If we don’t know the true motivations and ethical and moral considerations of decision-makers, we cannot possibly give informed consent to their policies and actions. It’s not just a matter of hearing what they say, looking at the evidence (remember Secretary of State Powell’s speech in the U.N.?), or reading what they write. Those may be false in regard to facts, or incomplete, or deliberately deceptive. But those policies and actions may come from within people whose qualities of character are so lacking that one should have no confidence in them or their judgement.

It is difficult to know about leaders’ character in the beginning, but rather than give in to decision cascades* we should pay attention from the very beginning, and perhaps also read attentively news-gathering interviews with them, and biographical data. In democracies, what politicians do, they do in our name; business leaders act within the boundaries of our social precepts, and of laws made by those same politicians who act in our names.

Keeping abreast of all this is impossible, of course, but knowing the moral character of the decision makers helps – if we have informed reasons to believe their character is lacking, then we withhold consent, and if we see them as having good character, we are likelier to consent for a while, for some distance, until better information appears.

*Example of decision cascades: day shift ER physician, a person of renown and highly respected, makes a diagnosis and prescribes a treatment for a patient; swing shift physician reviews earlier and current information, is doubtful about diagnosis or treatment, but, given the imminence of the earlier physician, concurs; midnight shift also reviews earlier and current material, considers that now two doctors have arrived at these conclusions, and so also concurs, despite doubts because of current evidence.

¹ Emotionally informed consent and dissent. – Upon reconsidering…