Juno News - February 04, 2022Leaders fail when they lack authenticity
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Summary
Aaron O'Toole was a Conservative Party of Canada politician who served as Prime Minister of Canada from 2011-2015. He served as the party's leader from 2015-2019, and is now serving as a professor at the University of Toronto. In this episode, I discuss the reasons why he failed as leader, and how his lack of authenticity led to his downfall.
Transcript
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If I had to summarize the main challenge that Aaron O'Toole's leadership faced and why he
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ultimately lost the confidence of caucus and it seems a lot of grassroots members is that he
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suffered from a major authenticity problem. What do I mean by that? Well, when he ran as
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conservative leader, he said, I'm going to stand up to cancel culture. I'm going to say no to
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carbon taxes. And then he got into office and he started behaving very differently. A lot of people
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felt like he went along with at least some forms of cancel culture. He introduced his own form of
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carbon tax. He also never really said no to lockdowns. He never said, even in the third
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lockdown, even in the fourth lockdown that Ontario and Quebec went under, maybe we perhaps shouldn't
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be doing this. And it was suggested to me by a number of people that, well, polls show this and
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polls show that. And he has to be careful. He has to balance this. He has to balance that. Okay,
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fine. I get all of that. But maybe you're personally thinking these things aren't good.
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So why don't you speak out on them? Well, because a lot of politicians say, you know what? I'm not
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going to lead. I'm going to follow. I'm going to look at the polling numbers. I'm going to try to
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appease Toronto Star readers who don't live in swing writings. They're not going to vote for me
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anyway. They're not donors to the party. They don't believe in the same things I believe in, but
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let's try and play that game. Let's try and create an argument in a way that will appease these
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individuals. And I think a lot of people, they kind of can see that about a leader and it doesn't
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inspire confidence. I've always believed that the politicians that win that do best are conviction
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politicians. I mean, look at the two previous American presidents, Barack Obama, Donald Trump,
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two different figures. Sure. But I believe they're both conviction politicians. They planted their feet
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firm. They said what they believed in and they didn't back down. Both of them won. No, Donald
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Trump didn't win re-election, but still, I think people felt that these were people who stuck behind
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their principles and were fighting for the things that they believed in. I got to say, Justin Trudeau,
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I mean, this is a guy, he actually does not really flip-flop. He is not wishy-washy. He goes out there
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and he just says stuff. And I think that resonates with some people, with the people who vote for him.
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With Aaron O'Toole, you can tell he was going to change his positions. Who's the real Aaron O'Toole?
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What does he stand for? That doesn't inspire confidence. It doesn't inspire respect. And
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clearly it creates problems within your own caucus, among your own party. And that was ultimately,
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I think, a major challenge. If you want to put all of the challenges with Aaron O'Toole's leadership
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together, it's that one, the authenticity challenge. And I think those who are considering running for
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the conservative leadership next, well, they should keep that in mind as well. Because
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whatever positions they're going to hold, wherever on the big blue tent spectrum their views are going
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to be, they got to be true to themselves. So they can say, I'm standing firm on my convictions. And I
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think that will ultimately resonate with a lot of people.