On Collaborative Leadership…
…and how Biden unleashed hope, optimism, and energy.
Like many Americans, the past two days in the U.S. following President Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race has fascinated me. I have seen lots of theories online — and reactions to theories — about how that happened.
What is clear is that President Biden bowed out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Harris as the presumptive nominee. Over the following two days, the Harris campaign raised $100 million from over 1 million unique donors and secured commitment from enough Democratic delegates to secure the nomination.
It is an incredible, swift, and energetic alignment in a political environment that has been fractious, divided, and hyperbolic for years. It was unexpected.
More surprising was the immediate shift in emotional tenor from lethargy and grim determination to potential and hope. After years of what feels like collective depression, the positive energy comes with a flood of relief.
Emotion is contagious and reinforcing so it’s easy to see how it snowballed, but what triggered it? As a strategist, here is my take:
For too long, leadership has been normalized as executive leadership; leadership that serves the objectives of a small group of stakeholders. We have been seduced into forgetting what democracy is, what it feels like, and what democratic leadership looks like under the decades-long campaign for deregulation and unfettered capitalism.
