The Leadership Style and Negotiation Approach of Donald Trump. What can we learn from his past for the next four years?

With Donald Trump taking office it is important to ask what kind of leader and negotiator he will be as he leads the United States.  There is certainly ample evidence from his past to draw from.  In this month’s blog post, I will begin by looking at his leadership style and how it can be characterized.  Then I will shift slightly and look at his negotiation approach and the way he tries to develop deals at the table.  In the end I will weave them together to see if we can understand what the next four years will look like.

In terms of leadership style, this is a rather tricky one to characterize.  However, lets give it a try.  There are a number of different leadership styles.  Lets use these five approaches as explained by Rose Johnson on the website Chron (http://smallbusiness.chron.com/5-different-types-leadership-styles-17584.html) The five styles are Laissez-Faire, Autocratic, Participative, Transactional, and Transformational.  Briefly here is a summary of each:

·      A laissez-faire leader lacks direct supervision of their followers and fails to provide regular feedback to those under their supervision. The laissez-faire style produces no leadership efforts from those also capable of exercising leadership. This often leads to poor performance and a lack of control.

·      The autocratic leadership style allows managers to make decisions alone without the input of others. Leaders possess total authority and impose their will on their followers. No one challenges the decisions of autocratic leaders.

·      The participative leadership approach values the input of team members and peers, but the responsibility of making the final decision rests with the participative leader. Participative leadership boosts follower morale because they make contributions to the decision-making process.

·      The transactional leadership style focuses on certain tasks to perform and provide rewards or punishments to followers based on results. Goals are predetermined together and the leader possesses the power to review results and train or correct followers when they fail to meet goals.

·      The transformational leadership style depends on high levels of communication. Leaders motivate followers and focus on the big picture to accomplish the goal.

Given these five styles, where does Trump fit?  At first glance, he seems to be a combination of the autocratic approach and the transactional style. There is little doubt that he has a top down style where he is in charge.  He certainly wields his authority and imposes his will on others.  Further, it is fair to say that the transactional approach is one that Trump talks about often.  Wanting new deals that benefit America and other approaches that see agreements as transactions rather than part of a larger relationship.  However, if we listen to his own words we find quite a different characterization that leads one to believe that he actually has a laissez-faire style.  Consider these comments he made about his own leadership style, "Most people are surprised by the way I work. I play it very loose. I don't carry a briefcase. I try not to schedule too many meetings. I leave my door open. You can't be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you've got too much structure. I prefer to come to work each day and see what develops."  Or consider this characterization of how he plans to deal with the media if he were to be elected president, “I’ll wing it and things will work out.”  As we watch Trump ascending to the Presidency these statements do seem to reflect his leadership approach in many ways.  The lack of details around policies during the campaign and the confidence he has in himself lend credence to this perspective holding truth.         

Now lets weave that together with his negotiation approach.  To do that we can turn to various snippets from his book the Art of the Deal.  To begin, it is clear that Trump is a transactional negotiator and takes a very positional or distributive approach to negotiation.  “My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.” (pg. 45)  Take the example of the wall he wants to build with Mexico.  The fact that he has stated he will get Mexico to pay for the wall is aiming very high…to the point that people are talking less about the building of the wall and more about who will pay for it.  He also seems to know how to manipulate people – playing on their sense of self.  As he stated, “I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole.” (pg. 58)  Trump also suggests that he is unafraid to dig in and may even take a deal past what may make sense or be rational (AKA the psychological concept of entrapment).  As he explains, “I fight when I feel I’m getting screwed, even if it’s costly and difficult and highly risky.” (pg. 236)  Finally, one can hope there is some truth in this statement. “You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion, you can get all kinds of press…but if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.” (pg. 60) 

Practically, his willingness to take risks has resulted in some great 'deals', such as the purchasing of the dilapidated 40 Wall Street in 1995 for $1 million, followed by $35 million in renovations, which resulted in a current value of $500 million today. Juxtapose that with other ventures, in which his laissez-faire approach (and later recalcitrance), have resulted in problems which eclipse any possible gains (e.g. all the problems with Trump University).

What we seem to have in our next president is a laissez-faire leader who likes to sense and feel his way through situations and believes he is more than capable of doing so very effectively.  Now, couple that with a very positional negotiator, who is unafraid to take risks, but ultimately knows he needs to produce results, and you have a very uncertain four years in the offering.