Leading by Stopping the Overblowing Cycle

Tokyo--As I write this in an airline club at Narita Airport, the CNN feed on a TV monitor provides a soundtrack to the persistent pop-ups on my iPad screen announcing one or another call in various House, Senate and Governorship races in the United States. This is a part of the election cycle that I usually miss--the part that happens after most of us in North America go to sleep and the process of counting votes and analyzing meaning goes on.

It appears as if the Republicans will gain control of the house, thereby making John Boehner third in line for the presidency, but predictions of a massive across-the-board capture of governance by the GOP seems overblown. But overblowing is what the American electoral process seems to do best these days. Newt Gingrich overblew with his Contract with America in the 1994 House election. Barak Obama and the Democrats overblew when they read the 2008 election as a mandate--it might have been the largest margin of victory in quite some years, but the reality is that the electorate divides within 5 or 6 points of 50/50. And CNN is right now carrying overblown words from Eric Cantor and others on the right about the meaning of the 2010 vote.

Each side just recapitulates the other's mistake by acting as if small margins mean revolutionary mandates. There's a leadership lesson here for the taking.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.