Reflections on John McCain’s Decision-Making Style

Recently the Newshour on PBS has analyzed the decision-making styles of McCain and Obama. This was an insightful and useful presentation that can serve as an important consideration in choosing which candidate to support. Before reflecting on what we learned about, I want to talk a bit about the process of decision-making and how I think it works.

I believe that rather than make decisions, what we do is understand situations and act in accordance with our understanding. What I mean by this is as individuals, we encounter situations, we project our sense of order onto what’s happening, and then we act to preserve that sense of order. If we’re thoughtful and see that our sense of order isn’t adequate and that we don’t fully understand what’s going on, we collect more information to bring things into focus and then act.

Our sense of the order things is really our paradigm. The better our paradigm, the more it conforms with how the world really works, the more likely our understanding of the situations we’re confronted with and the decisions and actions we take will result in something productive happening.

The contrast in the Newshour stories on the McCain and the Obama decision-making styles was startling. The paradigm, the understanding, from which John McCain operates is one of black and white, with few shades of gray. He will talk to those foreign leaders he considers to be America’s friends and won’t talk to those who he believes are not our friends. He seems less interested in facts than in impressions and personal ideology. He has a long history of deriding those who don’t agree with him. He is not one to seek additional information on a new situation because he quickly projects his already-held views (whether valid or not) onto it and discounts other points of view.

The choice of Sarah Palin is an example of this. He talked to her and saw that she too seemed to be someone who, at least superficially, was willing to take on entrenched interests, like McCain has in his career. Once he had that impression of her, that was enough. Forget about finding any information that might provide another point of view on the qualifications of neophyte Palin.

In interview after interview, McCain’s long-time friends and allies commented on his impulsiveness and shoot-from-the-hip style. McCain himself even acknowledges this style in his autobiography and admits it has frequently gotten him into trouble. Now this may be a relatively minor problem in his role as a senator where the consequences mainly reflect back on him. But as president, the consequences of his impulsiveness reflect back on all of us.

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, David Brooks writes of the importance of prudence in the decision making of national leaders: “How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can’t, what has worked and what hasn’t.”

Brooks was specifically writing about Sarah Palin, and no one would say that John McCain is inexperienced, though I think his sense of history is questionable. And I think it can be argued pretty convincingly that imprudence is a clear aspect of his character. Brooks is suggesting that a leader comes by his model (his paradigm, his understanding) of the world though experience, reflection, and study, and this serves as the foundation of what he or she chooses to do. From what I have seen and read, I question the quality of John McCain's model.

And keep in mind, the model from which we operate is not just an intellectual one—it also has important psychological components. In other words, we’re also talking about personality. John McCain readily admits that in his younger years he was a rebel, a troublemaker, who did not like to take orders.

By the age of 72, it’s easy to see that he has mellowed a lot, but these basic personality traits don’t go away. And there is ample evidence during his long senate career that these traits remain. He is still a contrarian who believes he already has the answers and is impatient with anyone who challenges his views. Given this approach to deciding and acting, I think we would be entering dangerous territory indeed should we wake up on November 5, 2008 and find John McCain is the next president.

In another piece, I will talk about Barack Obama’s decision style.