US President Donald Trump fell for the observers' paradox when he posted his ratings recently of the leadership qualities past US presidents.

Subscribe now for unlimited access.

Login or signup to continue reading

The observers paradox is where the act of observing something changes the phenomenon being observed, thus rendering the findings invalid.

In Trump's case, the mere fact that a sitting president does leadership ratings on US presidents, including himself, changes the validity of the findings because any sitting president who does such an exercise and rates himself as the "greatest" leader has clearly showed a distinct lack of leadership qualities in doing such a thing. He has displayed himself as narcissistic, lacking judgement, and lacking insight into the consequences of his own actions. These are the ingredients of poor leadership.

One of the consequences of his ratings post has been a rush by historians and others to put his assessments to the test - particularly the assessment of himself.

Time and time again Trump has displayed dismal leadership qualities. An outstanding example was his actions in leaving the NATO summit in Turkey last month.

First, he arrived at the summit on an aircraft given to him by the Qatari government. He should never have accepted the gift. It was clearly corrupt, especially as he announced he is going to keep it for his personal aggrandisement after he leaves office.

Further, he refused to appreciate the obvious security problems of using the aircraft - his brand-new toy - to go anywhere near the Middle East putting him in range of potential attackers, notably Iran.

Then, having been advised of the security risk and seeing he was in danger, he allowed himself to be taken away to another aircraft, leaving members of his cabinet, his advisers, and journalists on the Qatari aircraft knowing that they would be exposed to the risk.

What sort of leader does that? Spinelessly skulking off in a catering cart leaving underlings and others as expendable decoys to face a risk that he was not prepared to accept himself. Why would those cabinet ministers ever trust him again?

The test of good leadership rests upon what you say;........

© The Examiner