If you care about movements, you have to care about leaders
We need spaces for new political leaders to emerge - they don't exist - yet
Leadership is the single most important indicator of the likelihood of success for any movement for good or for ill. Yes, the cultural and economic moment matters. Grassroots support is key. Communications are indispensable. Resources are needed. But if you want a movement that can really change things you need skilled, trained, connected leaders.
Leaders come in many forms. Some leaders, in the words of Barbara Ransby writing about civil rights leader Ella Baker, “help everyday people channel and congeal their collective power to resist oppression and fight for sustainable, transformative change.” They are communitarian, collaborative leaders. Others are more “out front” and traditional in the vein of casting vision, giving structure and convening groups of other leaders and movement workers, then planning for action. Both are important in movements - the well-known out-front leaders and the hard-working, “behind the scenes” quieter leaders.
I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time thinking about all this and in the trenches of trying to help shepherd and grow a movement for a New Way in our politics in America. I’ve written at-length (and have a book coming out next year) on movement leadership - especially the eight different types I believe every movement needs. My focus with New Way Politics specifically is to elevate, connect and grow leaders for change in this critical moment in our nation.
It’s why I’m excited to tease the launch of the New Way Politics Leadership Network. The purpose of the network is to equip, connect and guide candidates and political professionals who want to run in a New Way but need resources, community and support. I’ll talk more about this in a minute. You can sign up here if you’re interested and want to be among the first to know the details. First, the “why” behind it.
We need values-based political leadership
We’re in a moment when values - those things which are deeply ingrained and should guide all decisions - are not primary in many professional political conversations. I know, I’ve been in thousands of them. American politics, even among the best-intentioned, is totally infected with the sickness of zero sum, the other side is evil culture. Left and right, partisan and non-partisan alike root nearly every conversation in the soil of division whether they know it or not. No wonder the fresh green shoots emerging are more toxic and violent than anything we’ve seen in the past 150 years.
The two-party system has built a massive economic model that produces values-bankrupt professionals and candidates to a nearly universal degree. Yes, there are a few elected officials and political professionals who are still deeply values-driven. But the vast majority - and the economic models which reward them - are operating in ways that are dividing our nation. If we don’t create an alternative model - an actual business model - I don’t see a sustainable path to a New Way in who we elect, or how.
To be clear, winning matters. A lot. I’m not saying that a focus on winning is wrong. Any political professional who isn’t thinking about how to win the election they’re working on isn’t worth their salt and you shouldn’t hire them. But there’s a difference between starting from a place of warfare and starting from a place of principled opposition. This is the territory of values. And it flows from the human beings engaged in campaigning - candidates and the professionals who serve them.
Mitt Romney recently said about the presidential race, “in my view, bad policy we can overcome as a country. We have in the past. Bad character is something which is very difficult to overcome.” Character, in this way, is rooted in ones commitment to a set of core values - and to living them out as consistently as you can. I firmly believe, and have for my entire career, that it is possible to do this in politics and succeed. This doesn’t mean pollyanna notions of what it takes to win, or that you’ll be perfect. It means that more than anything, the professionals and candidates are driven by what they believe in about how to treat others and what matters most.
Values are things like:
In Personal Character….commit to being ethical, honest, humble and tough.
In Relationships… be collaborative, a listener, open-minded.
In Evaluating the World…believe that there is truth and seek it.
In Systems…recognize barriers and inequities and support reforms to change them.
In Policy-making…seek solutions which flow from values and reflect communities.
In Disposition….reject political violence and work to reduce extremism.
These are not empty platitudes. They are bedrock values on which hard decisions about issues and approach can be based. We need to create spaces and communities of candidates and professionals where this kind of language is expected, celebrated and cultivated.
A gaping hole in the market
In asking these questions for nearly a decade - and in the campaigns and elections space in particular - I have discovered a real need for a very particular type of leadership cultivation and connection. A specific set of connecting actions need to happen, and a specific kind of community needs to be built.
In the two major parties, the candidates and professionals enjoy a sort of baked-in marketplace where, because of your party label, you are deemed “safe and acceptable” to work with one another. And there’s hundreds of professionals in each party providing services like strategic consulting, data, polling, digital, creative, fundraising and so much more. People can make a living providing these services and candidates benefit from a pool of experienced, knowledgable operatives to help them. It is a problematic ecosystem in many of the ways I’ve already pointed out - but its a real marketplace meeting a need.
If you want to run in a New Way - be that as an independent, a minor party candidate or even as a partisan in a place where rejecting some piece of the party orthodoxy (a “non-MAGA” Republican in a red state or a “non-woke” Democrat in a highly progressive area) - you are going to have a really hard time finding professionals and services. The good ones won’t work with you. It’s too risky to their financial stability. I can’t tell you how many candidates have called me after googling “independent political consultant” when they got rejected by traditional partisans.
After years of seeing this need - and a number of groups trying and failing to start something within an institutional context - I’ve decided to create it. We need a serious, viable network of political professionals who are willing, able and ready to serve New Way candidates. And New Way candidates need to connect with one another and the broader ecosystem and professionals so they can succeed.
That’s what the New Way Politics Leadership Network will do. Professionals and candidates will join for a monthly fee and enter into a community, a wealth of curated resources and a network designed to meet the needs of each - in a financially viable way. But it won’t just be an economic model. We are going to focus our community on values - and creating a space for those values to flourish and ground our work. I believe so much in this that we are culminating our first three month sprint in an in-person, limited attendance summit in Nashville in April centered on sharpening your 2024 plans, connecting with the broader New Way Politics community, mingling with top national minds from a variety of fields, learning more about our leadership styles and grounding our hearts and minds for what will be a very difficult political year.
We can’t wait to officially launch the Network in just a few days. Until then, help us spread the word and sign up here if you’re interested in being a part. It’s time.