Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign by political correspondents Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes takes an unbiased look at the recent presidential election. Hillary Clinton was favored to win the election, so what happened? The authors interviewed key staffers and reconstructed the events leading up to the election.

There are a number of key leadership lessons that emerge that can enable us to learn from the mistakes of others. Here are some observations based on the authors findings,

Leaders need to establish a clear and compelling vision – “But there was no overarching narrative explaining her candidacy, no framing of Hillary as the point of an underdog spear, no emotive power. ‘America can’t succeed unless you succeed,’ she offered in a trite tautology.” (p. 17)

Leaders need to hear the truth – facts are your friends – “But many feared speaking their minds around her. She couldn’t be counted on to relay constructive criticism to Hillary without pointing a finger at the critic. If Hillary was a candidate often isolated from her formal campaign—and she was—Abedin was the croc-filled moat encircling her.” (p. 33)

If everyone is responsible then no one is responsible – “’She has too many people in jobs who should not be doing the jobs they’re doing,’ one of them said. Much of this infighting might have been avoided had someone been given the authority to have the final say on matters large and small. But Hillary distributed power so broadly that none of her aides or advisers had control of the whole apparatus.” (p. 35)

Openness and honesty are essential to building trust – “The president of the United States, and all the Democratic officials below him, were now embroiled in the kind of scandal that reminded them of exactly what they didn’t like about the Clintons: the secrecy and the willingness to jeopardize everyone else’s interests in service of their own.” (p. 56)

“Hillary’s aides didn’t need to wonder why her economic message wasn’t breaking through. It wasn’t rocket science. She hadn’t told the truth to the public about her e-mails, and she was under federal investigation.” (p. 62)

Authenticity comes from the heart – “An inauthentic strategy to make her look authentic is absurd” (p. 82)

We need people who can speak truth into our lives – “The one person with whom she didn’t seem particularly upset: herself. No one who drew a salary from the campaign would tell her that. It was a self-signed death warrant to raise a question about Hillary’s competence—to her or anyone else—in loyalty-obsessed Clintonworld.” (p. 177)

Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are – “Bill Clinton didn’t have an impulse-control button.” (p. 248)

“The infidelities would dog Bill and his wife’s campaign, even if the Republican Party had already concluded that bringing them up wasn’t a compelling attack” (p. 351)

“Reporters would soon start circulating that Comey was talking about e-mails found when the FBI seized a computer in connection with investigating Anthony Weiner, who had apparently sent lewd text messages to an underage girl.” (p. 358)

Listen to your advisors – “One of the clearest lines of distinction between a great political speech and a pedestrian one is the ability of the speaker to turn the peroration—the final run—into a big call for action. Hillary’s fell flat. Her pro speechwriters knew it would. They tried to save her from being hokey and timid. But she’d ignored them.” (p. 299)

Speak well of others (Podesta’s emails created a significant loss of trust among the campaign team) – In one message, former Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band had called Chelsea Clinton a ‘spoiled brat.’ Neera Tanden, the president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress and a former Clinton aide, wrote in another that Hillary’s ‘instincts are suboptimal.'” (p. 345)

“On the one hand, it was a challenge to keep everyone from tearing each other limb from limb. That was manageable, if uncomfortable.” (p. 346)

“’It hurt us more than we realized,’ said one senior campaign official. ‘Another drip, drip, drip. A thing that turned good narrative days into mixed narrative days. A whole lot of people read those e-mails or stories about those e-mails or chyrons about those e-mails.'” (p. 349)

Don’t underestimate your opponent – “it was hard to find serious election analysts who were predicting a Trump victory.” (p. 369)

“’In those final days she believed she was going to win. And she was probably more bearish than most of us,’ said one senior campaign aide. ‘She was getting comfortable with the idea that it was going to happen.'” (p. 370)

But while Hillary was measuring the drapes in the Oval Office, her team was mismeasuring the electorate. (p. 370)

Leaders take full responsibility – “In other calls with advisers and political surrogates in the days after the election, Hillary declined to take responsibility for her own loss. ‘She’s not being particularly self-reflective,’ said one longtime ally who was on calls with her shortly after the election. Instead, Hillary kept pointing her finger at Comey and Russia. ‘She wants to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way’” (p. 395)

We can learn from the mistakes of those who have gone before us.

Associate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University

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