A Successful Number Two Beats being a Mediocre Number One.

 

Zhu Rongji, China’s former Prime Minister has died at the age of 97. The great and the good from around the world are pouring in their tributes and I’ve made a point that as a kid growing up in the West, Mr. Zhu was something of an icon for me. He was the one leader from “my” part of the world who was doing things to make an impact for the better. When I was at school and in national service, he was rising up and sorting out the kinks in the Chinese economy. When I went back to the UK for university, a time when Asian economies were collapsing, Mr. Zhu stood out as a stable force in China. A list of Mr. Zhu’s tributes can be seen in this obituary from the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3363824/zhu-rongji-reformer-who-led-chinas-economic-transformation-through-minefield-or-abyss

 

 As a Singaporean of Chinese ancestry, it’s always interesting to observe the relationship between the nation of my birth and the nation of my forefathers. To us, China is now being sold as the land of opportunity. To the Chinese, specifically those in power, Singapore is the text book on how to generate enough wealth to the extent that your citizens don’t ask for political freedoms. In a way, Singapore has made “authoritarianism” cool and the Chinese have actually proven to be very good students of this form of “Cool.” I used to attend School of South Asian Studies (SAS) talks where you’d have plenty of Indian academics complaining about China and then a number of Indian students saying “why are we complaining – look them and look at us.”

If you look at this Sino-Singapore relationship, you could say that Mr. Zhu was like a prominent Singaporean politician – Goh Keng Swee, our former Deputy Prime Minister and the man who actually built the institutions that made Singapore what it is today. Mr. Goh actually built the nation and then, suddenly in 1984, retired and was never of until his death. In world filled with “iconic” leaders stamping their mark in history, Mr. Zhu stands out as someone who faded away until his death. Ironically, history may judge Mr. Zhu by what he didn’t do rather than what he did. Never gave interviews, wrote articles for foreign publications or joined the lecture circuit.

If you look at both Mr. Zhu and Mr. Goh, you’ll realise that what made them so successful is that they were masters of “boss management,” a skill that is not taught in any leadership or business school. If I look back at the leadership training I received, it was the then School Sargeant-Major of what was then called SISPEC telling us “Just be diplomatic with your OC’s.” This being after two months of training to “lead men.”

Mr. Goh never eyed the top job. That belonged to Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. Mr. Goh was nowhere to be seen or heard when Mr. Lee was branding the Singapore story as his story. As such, Mr. Lee allowed Mr. Goh to get on with it. He kept the politics off Mr. Goh’s back and when the institutions built by Mr. Goh proved to be successful, Mr. Lee ended up looking pretty darn good.

Likewise, the same happened in China. Mr. Zhu became Prime Minister and understood that he was subordinate to a President in the shape of Mr. Jiang. As long as he didn’t threaten Mr. Jiang’s position, he could get Mr. Jiang to do the things that he needed to get Mr. Jiang to do. When he got things done, it actually reflected well on Mr. Jiang and the virtuous cycle continued.

Think about it. If you look at the USA, you’ll find that successful Vice President’s inevitably were so, because they never had Presidential ambitions, which meant that the president could let them do things. Clearest example being the late Dick Chenny, who as vice president pretty much ran the administration.

Call it a case of understanding that being a successful number two is better than being a mediocre number one. We give the glory to the number one. It’s called the “Bush Administration,” and not the “Chenny Administration,” even if it was Dick Chenny who played a key role in key policies. In the case of Mr. Chenny, he was lucky – the failure of the Iraq War had a scape goat – his boss. In the case of Mr. Zhu and Mr. Goh, they waited to get the credit for their actual work when they died. To many of us get greedy for instant glory. We want to be recognised straight away. In many ways, we’re taught that no point being good if nobody recognises and thus rewards you for it.

For the likes of Mr. Goh and Mr. Zhu, being the front man was potentially dangerous and they left the political battles to their boss’s. Top dogs have a way of being very insecure of their position. Staying in power becomes the most important mission rather than serving the institution they were supposed to serve. Both Mr. Goh and Mr. Zhu never gave any public speeches after their time in office. Their boss’s and successors never needed to pick a fight with them. Both men knew their strength was in doing the work not in doing the fights. Mr. Zhu was infamously straight forward, a bit too straight forward for political fights.

We’re always taught to look up or to climb the ladder. What we’re taught is that sometimes staying away from the top job and being a successful number two can be better for your overall legacy.