We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles. 1 Samuel 8 (estimated 1050 B.C.)
It is a trap as old as the hills. People who decide they want more than a leader; they need the power of a king for their cause. Leaders who decide they want to become kings. Groups and leaders who rise up to overthrow kings – and then sooner or later begin to act like the very kings they overthrew. It happens repeatedly – a powerful unaccountable king for me and mine is just fine, but only a constrained, accountable leader for thou and thine.
Our founders came to this country to get away from the oppressive rule of kings. They formed a system of government designed for leadership that prevented the rise of kings – religious or otherwise. And yet in recent years we keep moving toward the rule of kings. If you think this kingship all started with Donald Trump, you are not paying attention. If you think he has not taken it to whole new heights (lows) – you are willfully blind. If you think the next time the progressives are in power, they won’t up the ante to a level beyond – you are willfully naïve.
Kings and kingship become the default when a democratic people give up on leaders and leadership. It is easy to blame those in-charge for our migration toward kingship, but at the root of the problem unfortunately is the desire of our people and their tribes to have them. Trading a king of the progressive left for a king of the conservative right may bring temporary political change but it is not a leadership change – each leaves us ruled by a king. Surely, democracies get the leaders they deserve.
Very much like 3,000 years ago, today ours is a people concerned about leadership. More than 7 in 10 adults reported stress about ‘the future of our nation’ making it the most common source in this year’s American Psychological Association survey. There is much dissatisfaction and often fear and anger these days regarding our leadership. President Biden left office this year with the second lowest approval rating since World War II at 36% but slightly above President Trump’s rating of 34% at the end of his first term. Sixty-one percent considered Biden’s tenure a failure. Yet, in spite of Trump’s lower approval rating in his first term, he was re-elected in 2024. Now, three months into his second term his approval level has plummeted to 39%, the lowest of any president at the 100-day mark.
Low leader approval ratings are one measure, hatred is another. A recent shock poll reported by the website Modernity published by Johns Hopkins University Press, finds a majority 55.2% of Americans on the left say it’s justified to kill Trump, 48.6% say it’s justified to kill Elon Musk, 57.6% say it’s acceptable to destroy Tesla dealerships. Even the Godfather advised against the risk of hate: “Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.”
The level of contempt for our leaders seems to point beyond just policy or ideological differences but to something deeper. I believe a key part of that “something deeper” is how the leaders we are electing are leading. The price we are paying for a move toward more partisan “kingship” in hatred and its attendant dysfunction is not sustainable – in history, it is the precursor to civil war. It is time to make a clearer distinction between our ideological or political views and our requirements for how our leaders lead.
As our borders have been overrun, our national debt rises, wars rage on and more recently as our 401(k)s shrink, our relationship with Canada, Mexico and the EU erode, our culture battles grow, it is imperative that we get clearer about what we want and do not want from our leaders.
Political beliefs aside, there are major differences between kings and leaders. Kings act with relatively unrestrained power and authority to do what they please with limited accountability to those governed. It is power-based, often viewed as bestowed by God. By contrast leaders serve at the discretion of their stakeholders. It is relationship-based. Christians would note that Jesus defied many expectations by embracing servanthood over kingship. While individuals can be elected, appointed, anointed or self-appointed to various leadership roles, living, breathing leadership is bestowed by the will of its constituents. Kingship’s hallmark is energy-sucking compliance and innovation-killing control, while authentic leadership’s aim is to produce contagious energy and innovative progress in support of a worthy purpose. Leadership is much more complicated than simple lists, but I find these eight distinctions to be directionally correct:
- Kings rule. Leaders govern.
- Kings motivate by fear. Leaders motivate by purpose.
- Kings impose. Leaders influence and invite.
- Kings blame others. Leaders demand accountability of self and others.
- Kings treat opposition as enemies. Leaders treat opposition as stakeholders to learn from.
- Kings bully and silence the weak. Leaders enable and seek to empower the weak.
- Kings destroy relationships. Leaders build relationships.
- Kings are about me and mine. Leaders are about we and ours.
It is not hard to find examples of toxic ‘king’ behavior in today’s world that sends a chill down your spine: Putin of Russia, Xi of China, Khamenei of Iran, Un of North Korea. They shut down disagreement and dissent and control information. They manufacture crises to distract and overwhelm. They move rapidly by decrees and executive orders but are often slow, unskilled and even bored by the longer-term process of making things work.
Kings often exude a faux toughness that on the surface appears effective. But, over time power corrupts, stifling needed innovation and change while eliciting road-blocking resistance – that undermines many of their initiatives. Arbitrary king behavior comes with a heavy price for its relationship lack: admitting and correcting wrongs, finding compromise and being accountable to those governed.
In reality, the line between leaders and kings is a continuum with considerable gray in the middle, not a hard black/white boundary. Which raises the question: How have we gotten to a place where we are moving further to the king side of the ledger? It did not start with President Trump; it goes way back and is the legacy of both parties. It is not hard to find examples of voters, political parties, members of congress, presidents and heads of institutions increasingly engaged in “king-seeking” behavior: seeking king-like force to push through their pet issue, regardless of the preferences of or impact on the larger whole. Below is a partial list (in no particular order) of egregious king-like behaviors by Progressives and Conservatives – as viewed through the eyes of their opposition.
Progressives King Behaviors – as viewed by conservatives:
- Russia collusion investigation of Trump in the 2016 presidential election
- Ivy-league universities’ anti-conservative, antisemitic, pro-Hamas bias
- Biden massive southern border immigration influx
- Covid pandemic restrictions, kids’ gender-affirming care, DEI excesses
- Lawfare against Trump’s re-election, lawsuits opposing exercise of executive prerogatives as President
- Administration/media hiding Biden’s mental decline
- Environmental/other regulations’ costly restrictions on housing, energy, food
- Biden’s forgiving/delaying student debt payments; pre-emptive pardons of family/friends
Conservatives King Behaviors – as viewed by progressives:
- Trump role/support re January 6, 2020, Capitol attack
- Trump attempt to overturn the 2020 election
- Red states’ strict abortion bans
- Trump punishing law firms and press outlets opposing him/his agenda
- Trump deportation of illegal immigrants absent due process
- Trump arbitrary/ever-changing tariffs on allies and DOGE staffing and grants cuts
- Trump bullying Ukraine while favoring Russia
- Legislators blocking common-sense gun laws
If you think this list reeks of false equivalence because President Trump’s second term efforts are the most aggressively king-like yet, you are probably right – until the Democrats regain power and escalate the cycle. For example, certain conservatives who might applaud removal of tax-exempt status from Harvard would abhor doing it to churches. Overreach is what happens when political parties become cultist instruments of kingship.
That’s why “what-about-ism,” where each side blames the other side for being just as bad, is so corrosive. It reinforces a dysfunctional “kingship” cycle: broken relationships/distrust leads to ‘no-compromise’ gridlock, which gets nothing done, which increases demand for more authoritarian leaders (kings), which further destroys relationships and trust. Rinse and repeat.
The result is a movement toward kings whose business model is enemy-creation to get elected rather than leaders whose business model is relationship-building for getting big, important things done. The reason this cycle is so hard to change, is that in a politically evenly divided 50-50 country, at any given time close to half the country feels like their king is mostly ‘winning’ – while the country falls apart.
We are one nation – not two political parties. As Ezra Klein and Yuval Levin have lamented, our presidents these days have made themselves – and us – small by acting more like the head of their party than the leader of our great nation and a global power.
Relational Leadership: An Alternative to Kingship
We are caught between a [Republican] Party that wants to make government fail, and a [Democratic] Party that does not make government work. Ezra Klein
Why do we keep falling for this rule-of-kings trap? Because rather than be accountable stakeholders for needed change, it is easier for us to fall into the victim trap seeking “someone to go before us and fight our battles” – like a king. There is a name for this tempting cop-out: it is called relational laziness and it means being unwilling to work through conflict with those with whom we disagree, to collaborate and engage in give-and-take – all things that are hard, tiring, involve struggle and require resilience. We have become accustomed to a world where getting our way is easy – like an app that enables us to remotely change room temperature, lock a door or pay a bill.
Captive. That is the word I would use to describe the state of our current relationships. By becoming voluntarily captive to our ideological, theological, political, racial, and economic tribes – we have become captive to our rulers. We have become captive to an enemy-based kingship model that runs on good-guys (us), villains (them) and a never-ending fight (pro wrestling). Too often we have come to engage in a politics of entertainment or religious zealotry where shared grievances build tribal connection and community by feasting on how pure and victimized we are, and how evil the other side is. As each side fears and loathes the other side they demand a more extreme leader who will lean into fear and loathing. It produces broken relationships that make governing almost impossible.
Like any other addiction, we require larger and larger doses to stay up for the fight. Yet, as a number of us try to withdraw, we find detox to be challenging.
When it comes to leadership, we have lost the dream that inspired our founding – where citizens fought the tyranny of being ruled and chose leadership that might lift us up and pull us together – not in spite of our differences but in order that our differences might make us better. Rather than despair, how about we use this despair to incite the renewing of our vision and our vows – to make things better by re-embracing leadership and rejecting kingship?
This challenge cries for “collective action” – where both sides acknowledge our current approach is broken and leading us to failure. The hopeful news is that our largest self-identified group in today’s politics are independents at 43% compared to 28% for Democrats and for Republicans. Independents define themselves by what they ‘are not’ – neither democrat nor republican. What if they defined themselves by what they are for: advocates for electing “leaders” over partisan kings.
In my book, This Land of Strangers: The Relationship Crisis That Imperils Home, Work, Politics and Faith, I introduced the concept of Relational Leadership to describe a way of leading that addresses today’s existential crisis. The need for Relational Leadership is based on two premises: First, relationships are our most valuable and value-creating possession – individually and collectively in our families, groups, organizations – and our country. Second, the unraveling of our relationships is the single biggest risk we as a society face.
Relational Leadership prioritizes building the most productive relationships possible with the key stakeholders – constituents, employees, shareholders/donors, partners and yes, opposition – to deliver the bests outcomes in support of the mission. The coupling of the words – ‘productive’ and ‘relationships’ – reflects two crucial ideas.
First, doing big, meaningful things is a team sport – relationships are crucial in sports teams, work teams and anything that requires group effort. The current state of relationships both across parties and within party factions is badly damaged, and in some cases broken. While Relational Leadership does not require being close friends or buddies, the growing level of relational contempt globally, nationally and locally is a serious roadblock to getting important work done.
Leaders can make a huge difference in either destroying or restoring relationships by creating a culture where relationship-building thrives. Today we desperately need to make selecting and developing leaders committed to and competent in relationship-building as our highest priority. It is nearly always easier to repair broken policies than to repair broken relationships.
Second, today’s world hungers for accountability for getting big things done and solving problems – like justly ending wars, lowering inflation, providing affordable housing, reducing the deficit, arresting the mental health crisis. Stronger relationships are not enough – we need relationships to be purposefully productive. A defining characteristic of strong relationships is accountability.
What makes Relational Leadership unique is an unrelenting focus and accountability for productive relationships – vertically and horizontally across the enterprise that yield motivation, innovation, competence – and results. There is a tendency to think of the relationship focus as soft or timid. In reality it is a higher standard – that holds stakeholders accountable for better, more innovative outcomes. No victims, no blaming, no excuses – do the relational work to make things work.
There are many keys that distinguish Relational Leadership from kingship. Based on over four decades as a CEO and CEO coach, let me summarize two that standout:
1. Treat the opposition as stakeholders: Your opposition has a stake in your success or failure – treat them like stakeholders. Every leader in politics, business and non-profits has opposition – sometime or all the time. Regardless of how strong the disagreement, the dislike or how vicious the attacks, relational leaders avoid demeaning their opposition. They believe in the value of the “loyal opposition” and know there is much to learn from them. As Orson Scott Card has instructed: “There is no teacher but the enemy.” Our opposition often teaches us what no one else can or will. Will Democrats learn from the defeats by the opposition in 2024 or Republicans from the criticism of the first few months of 2025? Will we continue our sordid affair with power-hungry kings who seek to win the coming elections by further dividing us?
2. Ask supporting stakeholders to be relationally accountable: It is hard to be accountable for results without being accountable for productive relationships. If we believe relationships are our most valuable and value-creating possession, then it is incumbent on us to be accountable to that belief as agents of a less enemy-centered approach to leading. As leaders we must ask our supporters to be relationship builders not relationship destroyers. What does that look like? The late Senator John McCain, imprisoned and brutally beaten for five years as a POW during the Vietnam War after his plane was shot down, was running for president in 2008. When a supporter in a town-hall session called his opponent, Barack Obama, “an Arab” McCain responded: “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”
Relational leaders know they have little control over their enemies but they have considerable influence over their supporters and that is why they make positive relational behavior of their own tribe a major priority.
My friend Don, knowing I am old baseball pitcher, sent me this podcast, “House Call: Why the World’s Best Pitchers and Quarterbacks Seek This Man’s Advice,” by the wizard of all things throwing – Tom House who now is 77 and battling Parkinson’s. At the close House makes this statement, “the greatest right in the world is the right to change.” That’s the business leaders are in – change and being changed.
Our support for narrow political beliefs that catapult us back and forth from one extreme to the other is not our best hope. Our best hope is for leaders that build productive relationships across all stakeholders. The change we need right now is for us citizens to choose relational leaders over kings – because leadership matters!