New leaders need to read Clinton and Blair books

Members of the National Assembly in the debating chambers. Legislators should ponder the achievements they will leave behind after their stint in power. Photo/FILE  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By Mike Eldon

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As our elected and nominated leaders get down to business it’s salutary to read about how those who have recently left office reflect on their early days in power.

I have been learning from two of this era’s most successful ones, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, and I recommend their autobiographies to all those in Kenya who are settling into their new roles.

The former British Prime Minister’s memoir is called Tony Blair — A Journey, while President Clinton’s is titled My Life, and in each of these books we learn of their hopes and their fears, their triumphs and their disappointments.

Come to think of it, such books should not merely be consumed by incoming leaders but also by all of us voters too. For otherwise there’s so much we don’t realise about what they’re headed into, so much we take for granted.

Like any who’ve been called to public leadership (and, by the way, not just public leadership) they feel so honoured, so excited, so surrounded by others who are thrilled to bits with what has just happened.

These are the visible emotions, accompanied by appropriately cheerful and confident body language. But behind the smooth façades lurk normal human beings, with all their insecurities and fear of failure.

As they grapple to come to terms with the awesome responsibilities they have taken on, as they remember all the campaign promises that we now expect them to fulfil, they might be excused for waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night wondering if they are up to the task.

Blair and Clinton confess to such beginner’s anguish, and let no one imagine that even the cockiest of our flag bearers are immune from harbouring inner doubts. Anyone who fails to appreciate what amateurs they are as they enter the corridors of power for the first time is headed for certain disaster.

And the induction workshops they are attending will be far from sufficient to see them safely launched. Without exception they will need to read and to listen, learning from those who’ve gone before and those who remain.

Not least they must learn all about what not to do, what well-trodden paths not to follow.

Clinton, for instance, looks back on how “everything happens at once” in the White House, with so many issues clamouring for attention.




The 24/7 media (provoked by among others wily opposition politicians) are ever vigilant, homing in on the slightest conflict or controversy and making it the lead story of the day.

When you’re new on the job it’s quite bewildering, and I know how true this was for Clinton from my daughter, who was once an intern in his White House: I remember her telling me how struck she was by the lack of mind-space available for thinking too far beyond the tyranny of that daily news cycle.

Realising how these external factors brought perpetual disorganisation into his administration, Clinton eventually decided to “unclutter” his life, reserving two hours in the middle of most days for reading, thinking, resting and making calls.

“It made a big difference,” he reports, not least in reducing the huge physical and emotional toll the job extracts.

Both leaders felt almost permanently frustrated by their inability to deliver on the reforms they had earlier thought should be so possible and so relatively straightforward to bring about.


 Blair soon realised how complex state systems are, and that “reforming them is intellectually, as well as politically, extraordinarily challenging. It requires space to explore, iterate and reiterate.”

And Clinton was neither the first nor the last American president to have “overestimated what was possible”. “Everyone’s for change in general,” he reflects, “but against it when they’re the ones who have to change.”


Yes, we all know that, but how strongly it hits us when it’s the most powerful man on earth telling us so.

Clinton and Blair are renowned for their bubbly optimism, which is why when one reads their memoirs one realises what a strain it often was to maintain a confident exterior.

Random direction

Any leader, public or otherwise, can only succeed by overcoming the naturally lethargic pace and random direction of change. “Nothing ever comes to those with a negative mind,” writes Blair.

“Nobody achieves without an energy that is essentially positive. For among all the challenges of change there are fantastic opportunities.”

These two, like many others, became wiser and more effective as they came to terms with the constraints that hold all leaders back and learn how nonetheless to manoeuvre their way to make a positive impact on their people.

They campaign in poetry, laying out Utopian visions, but we’re told that the moment they step into their offices that poetry must degenerate to common prose. And the longer they occupy their offices the more they accept that perspiration counts for much more than inspiration. “As a younger leader I was better able to articulate the bright new horizon,” remembers Blair. “But as a more mature one I was better able to get there.”

It’s said that when Smith Hempstone — a journalist by profession — arrived in Kenya in 1989 to become America’s ambassador, he knew his posting would provide material for a book about his experiences here as a key participant in the struggle for multi-party democracy.

And when The Rogue Ambassador duly appeared we learned of what and how and why he did what he did, and of how he assessed his contribution to the development of Kenya.

So, as our leaders step smiling into the limelight, let them, as Stephen Covey challenged us, “start with the end in mind”.

What will be your legacy, ladies and gentlemen? What will you leave behind as your achievements after you serve in office? Better start thinking about that now. Or otherwise what on earth will you say in your memoirs?