Negative Campaigning = Loss of Leadership

As a marketer, I'm dumbfounded over the amount of local and national negative political advertising.  As a citizen, I'm alarmed.

As leaders, I believe we can learn a lesson.

Strong marketing is the business of delivering compelling messages that the consumer will wish to respond to.  We are to craft images, visions and value propositions that will engage the customer.   We are in the business of "telling our story" so that people will want to follow us.

Some (maybe most) of current political advertising does little or none of this.   The story is all about how bad, dangerous, incompetent and well, just plain evil the other candidate is.   Usually this story is accompanied by at least one photo, if not several, of the opposition candidate with his/her name plastered all off the screen.  If one is watching with the sound off, it is often very difficult to tell which of two candidates the ad is promoting.

By devoting so much time to the other candidate, the focus becomes the opposition.   It's like this:   I spent years in marketing for Macy's.  If I had crafted a television commercial that spent at least half of its time showing imagery of JC Penneys, my tenure with Macy's would have been considerably shortened.  The resources that I was entrusted with for marketing were for the purpose of telling our story, not for bashing the competition.

Ironic that candidates are spending so much of their own campaign's money. . .creating imagery and focus around the other candidate.

Moreover, with the conversation centered around "what's wrong with the other guy or gal" there is not a vision for the future.   Who are we to follow if there isn't a clear path forward?

That is why, as a citizen, I'm alarmed.  I need to know what I can believe in.   I need that path forward.  I need to know the story and vision of the people I'm asked to follow.

The same is true in the workplace.  Teams need to know what and who they can believe in.  They need to have a positive story and mission to follow.

Are you, as a leader, presenting a positive image and story that others will follow?   Or, are you so busy bashing others, or talking the negative points of the job and/or company, that the people entrusted to you don't know what or who they are supposed to follow?  If you have ever worked for a boss that focused on the negative, you realize how demoralizing this can become.

Just as advertisers spend the resource of money, leaders spend the resource of time - both their time and the time belonging to the team.  Are you using the resource of time creating focus around the competition, or are you wisely investing it in crafting positive images and stories for your team to follow?

Negative campaigning, whether in politics or in the workplace accomplishes this:  it makes both parties look bad.  As a leader, your team entrusts you to do so much more by creating positive communication that allows the company and the people who propel it to move forward.