Jeffrey A. Krames - The Joe Biden Way: How to Become a Bold and Empathic Leader

JEFFREY A. KRAMES

AUTHOR OF What the Best CEOs Know

Copyright 2022 by Jeffrey Krames. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Krames, Jeffrey A., author.

Title: The Joe Biden way : how to become a bold and empathic leader / Jeffrey A. Krames.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2022] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021028035 (print) | LCCN 2021028036 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119832355 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119832799 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119833604 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Biden, Joseph R., Jr. | United StatesPolitics and government2017- | LeadershipUnited States. | PresidentsUnited States.

Classification: LCC E916 .K73 2021 (print) | LCC E916 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/092dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028035

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028036

COVER DESIGN: PAUL MCCARTHY

COVER IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES NEWS | POOL | POOL

To Noah and Joshua,
whose shining souls light
my way forward every day.

Tell them what you really think, Joey. Let the chips fall where they may.

Joe Biden's Grandfather Finnegan

Joe Biden landed in the White House with empathy on full display. The evening before his inauguration, PresidentElect Joe Biden and Vice PresidentElect Kamala Harris held a somber, thoughtful memorial to the 400,000 Americans killed by Covid-19. Biden acknowledged the unspeakably large sum of dead Americans. To heal, we must remember. It's important to do that as a nation. He promised America that, if he were elected, he would make conquering Covid-19 and its ill effects on the economy his top priority.

A month into his administration, President Biden and Vice President Harris held another memorial, this time for the 500,000 who had died from the virus. Once again, Biden led with empathy: We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow. He asked Americans to avoid viewing each life as a statistic, or a blur, or on the news.' With feeling, he said we must honor the dead, but equally important, care for the living, those that are left behind.

It felt like an odd but familiar moment and event. In celebrating and mourning the ungodly number of the Covid-dead, Joe Biden was playing a role played by other presidents in perilous moments: consoler-in-chief. He was better at the role than most presidents because few doubted Biden's authenticity. Even his greatest opponents liked and respected him.

The president-elect continued on that evening: We often hear people described as ordinary Americans; there is no such thing. There is nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost are extraordinary. They spanned generations. Born in America, emigrated to America. But just like that so many of them took their final breath alone as Americans. I know all too well what it's like not to be there when it happens. I [also] know what it's like when you are there, holding their hands and they slip away.

Joe Biden's long-cultivated empathy was on display when he spoke of knowing about death. He had spent a lifetime remembering the deaths that so profoundly touched his life. The first tragedy was the loss of his first wife, Neilia, and their 13-month-old daughter, Amy, in a life-altering car crash in December 1972. Biden's two sons, Beau and Hunter, were also injured in the crash, but survived with serious injuries. A very shaken Joe Biden spent most every night with his two surviving sons, enduring a multi-hour, daily commute from Delaware to Washington, D.C., and back again. Far more recently, in 2016, Joe Biden lost his son Beau to brain cancer, the same disease that took his dear friend, war hero, senior senator, and former presidential contender John McCain.

His empathy as a leader has infused his storied career. Especially as president, Joe Biden has proven to be a likeable and reassuring figure, the importance of which was amplified because the Biden presidency followed one of the most chaotic administrations in recent memory. Even Republicans in Congress like the good-natured, avuncular Joe Biden. That has been true ever since he won his first Senate race at 29 years of age in 1972.

Early in his political career, a Democratic strategist named John Martella taught a young Senator Biden a lesson he never forgot: You know, Senator, he said, You should not run for president because tactically you can win. The questions you have to ask are why you are running for president and what you will do when you are president. You shouldn't run until you know the answers to those questions. Joe Biden knew the answers to them. Being someone other than Donald Trump was not a good enough reason to be president. He had learned that a positive vision of the future is a politician's most essential driving force.

In fact, Biden's driving force has been to help level the playing field so that the impoverished and people of color get a fair shake. In words and deeds, Biden has demonstrated his penchant to help the Americans who had been left behind by the previous administration. As you will see, there is significant evidence of Joe Biden's earnestness in helping the neediest among us.