5 essential leadership lessons CEOs can learn from Biden and Trump
Biden and Trump campaigns both know that they need surrogates to be effective leaders
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Over 51 million people watched the "CEOs" of America’s most powerful political parties take the stage for 90 minutes. They debated policies, personalities and the future of the country.
And 60 seconds after the cameras moved on, so did the rest of the country – to the crowd of surrogates and campaign representatives who flooded cable TV, social media, and traditional news outlets with insights, spin and talking points.
Yes, it was politics. But it was also the same surrogacy strategy used by smart CEOs every day – and one of the many lessons executives can learn from the presidential campaigns.
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1. Find good surrogates
To dig more into the surrogacy strategy, although CEOs often take the top spot in front of the cameras or on conference stages, they also often assign Chief Technology Officers to lead technical webinars, the Chief Operations Officer to coordinate vendors and regional managers to give speeches at local community events. That’s because CEOs know that they are not always the best people to communicate critical messages to stakeholders with varied interests.
U.S. President Joe Biden (R) and Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump participate in the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images / Getty Images)
2. Forget your critics
Top CEOs and presidential candidates also ignore irrelevant critics – politicians because they require only 50.1% of voters to achieve victory, and companies because only the right consumers need to move through the sales funnel.
Look at Five Guys, which ignores media headlines about its expensive burgers and shakes because fans keep coming back. And when Trader Joe’s was urged to change its ethnic food names in 2020, its response was simple: we listen to customers, not random petitioners. Customers are still snapping up Trader José off the shelves
3. Know your audience
Audiences that do matter, on the other hand, get the lion’s share of resources. Former President Donald Trump obsessively addressed undecided voters’ most important concerns – immigration and the economy – and blew off a question about climate change.
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Likewise, Domino’s doesn’t worry about elite foodies, instead investing all of its operational and marketing strategies into price-conscious consumers. Money that could have been wasted on overpriced ingredients is instead invested in an award-winning app, fast delivery times and promotions like giving customers a $3 coupon just for tipping the delivery driver.
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4. Marketing matters
And the promotion doesn’t end once the customer has the coupon or the debate is over. Domino’s heavily invests in mass media marketing and media coverage so that those who don’t yet know about the coupons start seeking them out. The campaigns know this, too – look at how the Republican National Committee used Biden’s "beat Medicare" comments for an Instagram video, or how Biden used clips from his North Carolina rally to make a new ad.
Instead of siloing the social media team from the video squad and the data nerds, the campaigns integrated it all with no wasted effort or unnecessary duplication. And the result is multiple pieces of content that were seamlessly built and disseminated to multiple target audiences with no, all aimed at moving more people down that voter funnel.
5. Build trust
At the heart of a campaign and a company is a strategy that earns target audiences’ trust and goodwill long before Election Day or the time of purchase. That’s why Trump’s and President Joe Biden’s campaigns spent weeks setting expectations for a 90-minute debate and the post-debate narratives. And we saw how Trump benefited. His disciplined messaging shattered many people’s expectations, especially compared to Biden’s many stumbles and misstatements.
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Top CEOs and presidential candidates also ignore irrelevant critics – politicians because they require only 50.1% of voters to achieve victory, and companies because only the right consumers need to move through the sales funnel.
That trust reservoir may be what’s keeping Boeing in the air despite years of manufacturing issues that cost lives, resulted in fines, and – as of this week – threaten to incur a Department of Justice lawsuit. It has decades of unparalleled service to the U.S. government and airlines across the world.
It’s easy for hard-working, successful CEOs to look at politicians and want nothing to do with them. But at their core, political campaigns are simply billion-dollar, sales-funnel machines, trying to earn business in the form of a vote. That’s why CEOs looking to expand market share through improved communications strategies should start thinking like politicians … for as long as they can stand to.