Leadership lessons: Labour isn't working

With less than two weeks to go in the UK Labour Party leadership election the atmosphere is febrile. The so-called Corbynistas can barely conceal their jubilation, whilst those on the Party's right sound increasingly plaintive, like a jilted lover imploring their partner to return. This morning I read the latest overture to Labour supporters from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose language is armageddon-like.

The polls suggest the so-called 'looney left' candidate Jeremy Corbyn will comfortably be elected leader of the Party, which suffered two crushing defeats in the last two UK General Elections (2010 and 2015) after 13 years in power under Blair and latterly his arch-rival, Gordon Brown. Labour has been annihilated in its traditional power base in Scotland by the Scottish Nationalists, who brazenly stole its clothes in a supposedly all-new, social media-savvy, seductive brand of Anglophobic Scottish socialism.

Over many years Blairism has proven divisive - it has polarised the Party to such an extent that many commentators are predicting it will split if Corbyn is elected.  Arguably it should split anyway, irrespective of who becomes leader.

On Friday night the BBC's Newsnight programme carried an extended analysis of two focus groups of former Labour voters which the BBC carried out last week with pollsters MORI.   Most of them voted for Tony Blair in the past, now see either Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper as the best choice, and think Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable.

Afterwards in the studio Lord Danny Finkelstein, Conservative peer and former Executive Editor of the Times newspaper, now one of its political columnists, correctly pinpointed the fundamental problem facing the Labour Party. Stripping out Conservative mischief makers who've mirthfully signed up to vote in the Labour leadership election (whether or not the Labour Party manages to weed them all out they won't determine its outcome) the blunt reality is that a very large consitutuency of Labour activists will vote for Jeremy Corbyn, irrespective of the electoral consequences.  They do not want power at any price, especially when it involves the sacrifice of principle, which, they believe, is the Blairite formula. They will never forgive Blair and his acolytes for taking Britain into an illegal war in Iraq as America's poodle, and they're determined to punish the right wing of the Party for that and for what they see as its many other egregious transgressions ('crimes' would not be too strong a word in their vocabulary).  To them Tony Blair betrayed core Labour values, and they hate the fact he held power for 10 years before handing over to Gordon Brown.  It wasn't New Labour; it was Not Labour!

This is a civil war, and it has been rumbling on since the then Labour leader Neil (now Lord) Kinnock expelled extreme left wing Militant Tendency members from the Party 25 years ago and in 1995 Blair neutered Clause IV, the Party's 1918 founding commitment to quasi-Marxist public ownership of the means of production.  The current leadership contest has unleashed the blood-letting and score-settling that has brewed for years - believe me, it's only going to get uglier.

The deep irony is that it could so easily have been the Conservative Party in this terrible predicament. It remains in similar danger of being rent in two over the incendiary topics of Europe and immigration. Had the 'Yes' campaign won the Scottish independence referendum, or the Conservatives' terror campaign about a Labour/Scottish Nationalist coalition (which was never going to happen in reality) not so spectacularly hoodwinked English voters in May, then the Night of the Long Knives we're now seeing in the Labour Party would have been happening instead to the Conservatives.  Sliding doors.....

The two main UK political parties are prime examples of how not to run a sustainable organisation. They are currently being outflanked by smaller, nimble, more coherent and far more adaptable competitors - the SNP, UKIP and, I'll wager, the rejuventated LibDems in the centre ground, who are content to fly beneath the radar screen for a few years and regroup at local level.

So how does the behaviour of Top 1% organisations and their leaders differ?

1. They focus outwards, not introspectively.  They put the needs of those they serve above all else, especially self-interest.  They seek to retain the moral high ground and inspire people. The purpose of a great organisation is NOT to perpetuate itself come what may, but to serve others. This is the mistake the Labour Party is now paying dearly for.  If it is to revive its fortunes it must start putting the country's interests first, not its own.  Perversely that's why Jeremy Corbyn appeals to so many core Labour activists - to them he's a welcome breath of fresh air.
2. They are humble and show appropriate contrition.  Tony Blair may have been credible to the electorate at large, but he remains one of the most transparently narcissistic political leaders in recent UK history. Ironically the other was Gordon Brown, and their combined personal impact on the Labour Party's electoral prospects for the foreseeable future has been devastating.  In Blair there was always a whiff, sometimes a stench, of naked self-interest from the outset.  He lacks authenticity, and as I've said elsewhere people have highly tuned cr*p (bs) detectors. I had indirect personal exposure to New Labour's seamier side when he was leader and believe me, their ends justified dubious means, putting it mildly.  By contrast leaders who build enduring success and leave positive legacies show humility and contrition, two words that don't exist in most politicians lexicons! 
3. They listen carefully and ask questions.  They avoid the unwarranted dogmatic certainty and evasive responses to questions of so many politicians who feel forced to toe the party line to advance their personal careers.
4. They instinctively understand neuroscience and they apply it.  Since the primitive brain (brainstem) is dominant in all of us it drives human behaviour.  Wise leaders and organisations understand they cannot appeal to people's rational brains if they are not also tapping straight in to their fears and insecurities.  They do this not by cynical manipulation, which is all too common elsewhere, but by what I call 'healthy parenting'; in other words taking people's concerns seriously and helping them to develop to their full potential and to strive for higher goals.  For more insights on the critical importance of neuroscience in organisational success see How the brain works and why you should know and Why selflessness is good business.
5. They accept that adult existence is about accepting and managing challenging paradoxes. There are no simplistic answers to the overwhelmingly difficult problems the world faces, only timeless principles with which to confront them. You have to find a way to explain that to people, and in order to do that you have to take them seriously and act on their concerns - see (4) above.
6. They confront brutal realities and tackle them, head on.  They exhibit moral courage and never bury their heads in the sand.  See The truth may hurt, but seeking it sets you free.  

Neuroscience shows us that there's an unavoidable heirarchy of forces driving human behaviour.  Top of the pile is primordial, involuntary, hard-wired instinct.  This is an inescapable fact!  No 2 is emotion, and in distant 3rd place are ideas and logic.  Clever salesmen like Tony Blair may win the battles of ideas at different times, but they cannot win the wars of instinct and emotion. Wise leaders carry people with them, head, heart and soul, for the long haul.

I believe there's a need for a fundamental re-alignment in politics, in which healthy, open debate between people who disagree respectfully but share a common goal replaces tribalism, spin, over-simplification, groupthink, fear-mongering, and the irresponsible demonisation of political opponents which serves only to destroy the credibility of the whole system, your own faction included.  The level of debate on most critical issues is puerile. For that reason I welcome Jeremy Corbyn's meteoric rise to prominence, and I hope he will prove yet another key trigger for an essential, long overdue, but deeply painful, restructuring of the British political system.

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