Cowen and Obama

“It is in the influence of two groups – the supporters and the knockers – that the great divergence in pressures facing Cowen and Obama exists right now”


Denise Horan

IN one of her radio columns on RTÉ’s Drivetime last November, Olivia O’Leary traced her relationship with Bertie Ahern and with his successor, Brian Cowen. While respecting Ahern for his political triumphs, a professional encounter with him years earlier made her wary of his cunning. Cowen, on the other hand, she found personally likeable, and she was particularly taken with the ‘country wedding’ feel to the celebration in Offaly of his ascendancy to Taoiseach.
There in the rootedness and down-to-earthness of Brian Cowen, however, she also pin-pointed the great flaw in his leadership to date. While Cowen had to be admired for his love of his home county and his country, and for his loyalty to Fianna Fáil, he hadn’t yet grasped, she charged, that he was now leader of the entire country. Those from Offaly and those from outside. Supporters of the Soldiers of Destiny, and foes with an equal loyalty to other political persuasions. Born and bred Irishmen and women, and immigrants who now called Ireland home.
This realisation dawned when O’Leary heard Barack Obama’s acceptance speech some days earlier, following his success in the US Presidential election. ‘For those of you who did not vote for me, I will be your President too,’ he said. Unlike Cowen, he seemed to get instinctively what it is to be leader of a democratic nation.
While the challenges facing the Irish Taoiseach and the President of the United States are very different, there are universal truths about leadership that link them and that will ultimately determine how history will judge each of them. The central one is that identified by O’Leary – that a leader must lead all the people in his or her domain. The ones who don’t trust him and disagree with every decision he makes, who want to see him fail, who resent him being leader, who are incapable of grasping his vision. All of those, along with the many who will stand by him through thick and thin, who will shield him from pressure when they can, who will take risks for him, who will defend him, who worship him.
It is in the influence of these two groups – the supporters and the knockers – that the great divergence in pressures facing Cowen and Obama exists right now.
Today Obama will be inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. He carries with him the goodwill of almost the entire US, and of the world, but equally, he carries the great burden of the collective expectations of individuals, of families, of communities, of races, of nations. He is already – according to an American news poll – expected by 65 per cent of the people to be an ‘above average’ president, with one in three expecting him to be ‘outstanding’. More than any leader ever, the world expects of Barack Obama.
Brian Cowen, on the other hand, is dogged by nothing but adversity, criticism and doubt. Negativity is all he hears from those who question him and all he still sees in their faces when he has given them answers. His people now not only expect him to fail, they see it happening before their eyes.
Each leader is at a critical crossroads. Obama must accept the goodwill and the support, but he must also make tough decisions, communicate them authoritatively, and see them through – for the good of everyone. Expectations of him are high, but they can be tempered by reality if he earns people’s trust.
To Brian Cowen, the same applies. For months now, the Irish people have only been getting drip-fed soundbytes about the real state of the economy. Rather than protecting us, he is foolishly alienating people at a time when he needs our trust and we yearn for leadership. In a leadership vacuum, people presume all sorts of things, including that those in charge only care about certain interest groups. People can understand and live with unpalatable decisions if they are based on sound rationale and if they are communicated clearly. Cowen has given people neither.
There is time for both men to get it right. Obama has the chance to do it from the start; Cowen can undo his bad start by starting afresh – as the willing leader of an entire nation.