Recognize a Great Leader by Who They Attract & Hire
How does a bellwether consistently recruit top-notch staff?
In Ezra Klein’s May 2021 podcast featuring Elizabeth Warren, he mentioned what I took notice of during her presidential run — the quality of her staff.
“…this is more subtle, but it’s really important. Warren pays much more attention to staffing than most figures in Washington. And so, she has brought a lot of really talented people up to her staff, trained them herself, and then put them elsewhere into government. There are sort of Warrrenites all through the federal government now, and also in elected office: Katie Porter in the House, the member of Congress from Orange County, California, who’s become a total star. That’s a former Warren student.” — Ezra Klein
I was impressed that Klein recognized what most others have missed.
Having been in management I know the importance of the careful vetting of staff and have been intrigued by the intricacies of how leaders hire good people. I’ve also been shocked by stories of those who have made bad hiring decisions.
I once coached a second-level manager in a mental health agency who shared her nightmare tale about a program manager she had hired. The program had become a textbook case of dysfunction — a staff of codependents who covered up the incompetence and misdeeds of the manager. I asked if there were any red flags when she first interviewed him. She described several gigantic red flags that made me cringe.
Attracting and recognizing the best job candidates is an advanced skill. Those who are good at it naturally screen out the dysfunctional folks.
For those like me who are in awe of great leadership skills and fascinated by workplace dynamics, observing public service settings is what we do for fun.
My most significant recent insight on this topic came after researching Elizabeth Warren and her staff. While I have much to say about Warren’s presidential campaign, the principles I explain are not unique to political campaigns but are universal to any organization.
Staffing is one of Elizabeth Warren’s superpowers. She not only understands that “personnel is policy” but finding and developing superheroes aligned with her policies is one of her top skills. (it’s also a long-game strategy of #WarrenDemocrats — the new brand she launched the moment she dropped out of the presidential race. She not only continued the work she had been doing but she helped secure positions in the Biden administration for a number of former staffers.)
What’s the magic behind good hires? Why is it important to make good staffing decisions from campaign manager to interns? From CEO to mailroom clerk?
Ability to Attract High-Quality Staff
How does Elizabeth Warren manage to find and place so many top-notch staff?
I think part of it is a phenomenon we refer to as “birds of a feather flock together.” (also called the law of attraction by some). Most of us understand the concept of birds of a feather but the thing to understand is that the flocking choice is not always made by the birds.
Have you ever had the experience of trying to flock with those who wouldn’t give you the time of day? It wasn’t fun, was it?
On the flip side, have you had the delightful experience of forming a connection with a like-minded person who seemed to come out of nowhere?
Both are examples of the birds of a feather dynamic. I’m not convinced that it’s true 100% of the time or in 100% of situations, but I’ve seen enough examples in my own life and the life of others, to know that there’s something to this energetic curiosity. Understanding and paying attention to it has helped me increase my self-awareness and helped me handle certain life situations more effectively.
The “birds of a feather” proclivity can be in play in both positive and negative ways and it’s almost impossible to fake it out. We can’t get into a flock by pretending to be like them. It just doesn’t work. That’s the bad news but the good news is that we often find “our people” with little effort.
There are times in life when we realize we’ve outgrown the people around us but we haven’t yet found a new group of friends.
We can try to avoid our flock but the only surefire way to find and be accepted by the cool people who impress us is to become like them — to develop those qualities in ourselves. We do this by shifting or raising our vibe to match theirs. Some of you are rolling your eyes at “vibe,” but stay with me.
How Do We Raise Our Vibe to Attract Impressive People?
We do it by doing our work — our self-development work that improves our essential adult skills. We find resources. We use self-study, and/or guidance from a mentor, therapist, or professional coach. We do this by being honest with ourselves to increase our self-awareness. We improve our relational skills, learn how to develop good judgment, then upgrade our behavior and habits. In other words, by becoming a better person. Not intellectually smarter (though that’s part of it) but by becoming more emotionally mature, and acting with greater integrity.
There’s just one catch. We must be teachable. Coachable. We must have both the willingness and the ability to learn.
Back to Elizabeth Warren. She functions at a level of competency and accomplishment that naturally attracts those with the same strategic smarts, work ethic, and cool-headed behavior.
Recognizing and Investing in Those with Potential
People who were aligned with Elizabeth Warren’s professional prowess, including those who weren’t yet there but had potential were drawn to her.
Her skill is that she recognizes them. She has highly-developed internal radar and knows when she meets someone who is ready to join her circle or who has enough potential for her mentoring investment.
Congresswoman Katie Porter was Warren’s law student. Porter is clearly from the same flock. She has a similar tenacity, ability to multi-task and get things done, and the same tactful but relentless interrogation skills that she displays during Congressional hearings. But Porter is not simply a Warren clone.
Warren doesn’t want duplicates of herself — she mentors staff, helps develop competent leaders, treats them as equals, and the ones ready for primetime go out into the world to make their positive mark.
Katie Porter is a kindred spirit and close colleague of Liz Warren but is certainly not a duplicate. She has her own unique brand using her signature whiteboard when schooling corporate CEOs during House Oversight Committee hearings.
Warren’s Presidential Campaign Staff Were the Cream of the Crop
During the presidential primary, I studied the candidates closely. I liked Warren as my Senator but at first, I was lukewarm about her running for president. The truth is I knew little of her career, accomplishments, or the range of her skills.
I started following her and perked up after watching a live stream of a Black women’s political summit where Warren wowed the audience (and me).
I then saw a video of her sharing her own struggle to find reliable childcare when she started law school and again when she took a position teaching law — how that challenge almost derailed her career and how her Childcare Plan would remove that obstacle for all women. I wanted to know more.
That was a long-winded lead-up to say that during my research I learned about Elizabeth Warren’s staff. I explored the workings of her campaign. I attended a few sessions of “Warren Night School” that taught field organizing and campaign outreach. I was highly impressed by every campaign trainer and volunteer with whom I came into contact. Their commitment and authentic enthusiasm was infectious.
I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about her staff.
I Looked Behind the Scenes to Assess Warren’s Staff and Volunteers
I had gotten back on Twitter a month earlier knowing it was the best way to stay politically informed as well as a platform where I could hear directly from people at all levels and potentially interact with them.
I scoured Warren’s website for the names of her staff, then followed them on Twitter. I discovered her campaign’s brilliant branding with the color “liberty green.” The Twitter profile picture of every staffer was a black and white headshot with a liberty green background.
The instant identification of Warren staffers on Twitter created an impression of unity among her staff and positioned the campaign as an embodiment of “we’re all in this together.”
The staff I followed included her communications director, senior advisor, video producer, speechwriter, field manager, and her campaign manager Roger Lau who I’d met when I worked on my local State Rep’s campaign.
To say I was impressed is an understatement. These people were rock stars and the nicest, most creative folks you’d ever want to meet. And, the diversity! Many people of color and a high percentage of women. I’d found my flock.
To me, Warren was the real deal if “those cool people” were working for her.
That’s when I had my epiphany —
Elizabeth Warren attracted and hired the best of the best — brilliant, creative, committed, and genuinely kind people. That spoke volumes about the kind of leader she was.
Kane Miller’s May 6, 2021 Tweet shown above is one of the most astute observations about political campaigns I’ve ever read. Kane states:
“One of the first things you learn in campaigns is that volunteers come for the candidate, but stay for the organizers in the office. Campaigns are as good as the people working on them…”
Staffing not only matters — it’s mission-critical.
Pro Tip: You can learn almost everything you need to know about a candidate by getting to know the people working on their campaign.
Following staffers on social media allows you to do that. You’ll soon find out if that person is your candidate and if you’ve found your political flock.
Two years later Warren staffers have joined the Biden administration.
My bet is that she “had a plan for that.”
What About the Staff of Other Candidates?
I was interested and curious about Bernie in 2016. I didn’t delve into his campaign back then and I didn’t personally encounter any “Bernie Bros.” (I also wasn't active on Twitter at that time)
After discovering the “gold” of Warren’s 2020 campaign staffers, I scouted around to learn about Bernie’s 2020 campaign people.
To be honest, many of them rubbed me the wrong way. But I gave them the benefit of the doubt, listened to interviews, and read their Tweets. I had local friends who were all-in for Bernie — people I respected, so I kept giving him and his campaign staff another chance.
I was impressed with Bernie’s campaign co-chair, Ro Khanna. He was a level-headed Congressman who spoke sensibly about Senator Sanders and didn’t trash the other candidates.
I was concerned however when so many Sanders staffers continued to publish Tweets that were making accusations and demanding certain actions from other candidates, rather than forwarding their candidate’s message.
What upset me most was that I didn’t think the staff and supporters who were negative and blaming accurately represented Bernie himself.
Bernie certainly didn’t mince words or hold back his outrage when speaking about inequities, but he mostly simply spoke the truth without playing the blame game or lashing out at other similar candidates.
Because I had begun to see how much staff were a reflection of the candidate they worked for, I felt bad for Bernie and found myself less comfortable about him possibly becoming president.
As the primary unfolded I focused not only on who I thought could envision equity and write effective policy, but also who I thought could govern well.
My sense was that Bernie supporters were passionate activists who believed wholeheartedly in his vision, but who had been in “the fight” for so long that some of them had difficulty (and perhaps little desire for) shifting to a stance that wasn’t oppositional.
I could see they were visionaries but I had a hard time picturing most of them as a good hire for White House staff. I could be wrong but I wasn’t convinced they’d even want to become implementors involved in governing.
While not every campaign staffer is appropriate for a west wing position, if a candidate can’t bring key staff with them because they are campaigners but not cut out for governing they’ve got a big problem. Hiring a whole new set of people will not only disrupt continuity but is extremely time-consuming and risky. A candidate needs proven staffers who can hit the ground running on inauguration day.
Leaders Who Hire People with No Experience and/or Bad Behavior
Then there was the 45th president who hired wealthy people with no experience related to the agency they were appointed to run. There were also some who “paid to play” — big donors rewarded with a cabinet position or other appointment. Many who were hired resigned or were fired after a short time. A number of the administration’s staff were indicted. Many birds of a feather were pardoned together.
High Staff Turnover (for whatever reason) is Always a Red Flag
It doesn’t matter if staff resign or they are fired. If there is significant turnover, it’s a symptom of a dysfunctional organization and leadership shortcomings.
The problem might be with the workplace and the leader, or it might be with the staff member, but as explained earlier there might be a factor of attraction that brings the two together. This is not victim-blaming. We’ve all had bad experiences with bosses, have been drawn to the wrong people, or have struggled with our personal boundaries.
The sooner we move on, the sooner we’ll find a more appropriate workplace.
(NOTE: members of marginalized communities have a far more difficult journey with many more obstacles and fewer choices)
High turnover indicates that staff are one or more of the following:
- unhappy
- troublesome
- incompetent
- abusive
- being abused
- a sexual harasser
- being sexually harassed
- or any number of other negative possibilities
Staff members are always a reflection of the person at the top.
If staff are bright, organized, and accomplished creative thinkers, you can bet their leader is a superstar.
When assessing a potential boss or trying to decide which candidate to support, learn what you can about that person, but don’t stop there.
Find out as much as you can about the people who work for them.
You’ll save time and likely learn the most important things you need to know.
Christine Green: * Coaches business owners on how to make better hiring decisions.* Has taught a “How to Hire” seminar to middle managers. Read Christine's articles on Leadership.
