I tend to read a lot of business books and articles on strategy, competition and winning and given some of my professional career choices, I’ve adopted a precise analytical acumen in the area of diversity & inclusion centric to minorities, women, military, and leadership.
For today’s conversation, I thought we’d focus on women; the prevailing view is that men and women think differently about leadership, and the most successful companies have found that the inclusion of women and minorities in key senior leadership roles, and as members of the board of directors, is indeed a vital formula.
That diversity of thought and opinion helps to guide companies and organizations towardsuccess. With our current market and political environment, in the backdrop of our decision making processes, success should certainly be the only foreseeable option for ultimate survival.
I believe this to be true, not only in business, but in politics. We collectively experienced this as a country while we watched the three presidential debates. Let’s be clear, we all saw:
- An experienced, prepared, overqualified woman candidate DEBATE
- A more inexperienced, unprepared, unqualified male candidate
It seems to most that hers was the winning strategy and it makes sense, as she’s been on this stage before. She brought together a team of experts who helped her assess her opponent, in the way a football team reviews endless footage of their opponents game handbook strategies.
Almost feline-like, she developed winning plays, including ways to get under his skin which resulted in excited utterances we’ve rarely seen before on the political stage. She then executed brilliantly, staying on message, delivering her vision and using her own words to fight back.
One would think she needed these debates to make herself more appealing to certain target voters, including Millennials (whom we define as those ages between 18-34 in 2015). She accomplished this in spades. Accused of being soft on her opponent after the second debate, clearly she had the long game in mind, which resulted in a TKO. LOL.
That said let’s explore: how Hillary Clinton’sopponent prepared and executed? At first, his campaign denied he had prepared at all. After a stunning loss in the first debate, they rebooted, he listened to his advisors, and he came back for more…this time with a better overall performance in the second debate.
By the time the third debate came along, his camp had to feel better. Never mind the polls; he was still standing, he even brought notes although one must be honest in acknowledging that his notes didn’t seem to be of much help, as he struggled to string together reasonable policies and/or sentences. My two major takeaways were:
- He would not necessarily accept the election results, boasting “I will leave you in suspense!“
- In speaking about his female opponent, he exclaimed that she was, “Such a nasty woman!“
We have to ask ourselves, is this what WE as a country want in our next president? Let’s see:
- Someone who would hold up a peaceful transfer of power and undermine our democracy in order to make themselves the focus of attention?
- Someone who can’t help themselves enough not to behave in a sophomoric fashion, except to speak with such over confidence when providing “we the people” with absolutely inaccurate information, both while he’s under pressure and “at ease”?
- Someone who reverts to whining during what should be our fair and earnest opportunity to preview the ideas and general direction for our country?
- Moreover, someone who lacks understanding for the stature and gravitas it requires to succeed to the highest office of duty as the most significant leader and contributor of the free world, our United States of America?
A key theme of this political season is temperament (defined as the combination of mental, physical, and emotional traits of a person; natural predisposition). What we can say is that our female presidential candidate not only told the country that her male opponent doesn’t have it, and she does; she showed the country he doesn’t have it and she does.
Our take from this…well it seems that she will govern with the 3 S’s closely in tote:
- Sedulously
- Smartly
- Sanely
Our first female president is more than prepared, and we’re not surprised, we are proud!
The collective gasps heard across the country about the fragile state of our democracy were overshadowed with a chorus of what felt like (mostly) women exclaiming and embracing their own inner “nasty.”
Social media implications and memes are vast and almost a bit joyful. Spotify, declares recent downloads of Janet Jackson’s “Nasty” to be up 250% —who knew a political anthem for 2016 would be resurrected from 1986?!!
Folks are even adorning T-shirts, buttons and coffee cups calling all “Nasty Woman for 2016” and to have “Nasty Women Vote“. The “hot mic” candidate who recently admitted that he regularly assaults women calling his opponent “nasty” was priceless.
Outfoxed, outclassed and outplayed by a woman in a few masterful strokes… and in November, there will be another name to call whereby we can all refer to his opponent as: its Hillary, Madame President if you’re nasty.
Totally hilarious,
Lord Taylor
