A Leadership Lesson for us All: How Kamala Harris Can Get Her Groove On

By Brent Filson

Sharpening their message for the elections, Democrats are afflicted by a fundamental communication misconception that could cost them dearly. 

The misconception deals with Kamala Harris and her failure so far despite a powerful acceptance speech, strong interviews and a robust debate performance to establish deep, motivational relationships with large segments of the electorate. 

Sure, there are die-hard progressives who are excited about her candidacy. But votes from Progressives and hard-left Democrats alone won’t win her the election when Trump’s MAGA has at least 30% of the electorate locked up solid. 

Facing a hurricane of Republican attacks, she needs a broader, deeply inspirational outreach. This outreach cannot be simply manifested by speaking words on a teleprompter. The addition of potentially Republican-killer Walz to the ticket helps, but she must carry this load herself.

Yet seeing her communications as Vice President and short stint as Presidential candidacy, I feel she is content to simply mouth scripted bullet points.

Such points, the wallpaper of politics, are communication drugs to candidates who don’t care or know how to make the motivational connections with voters. 

Let’s look at what her communication should entail. It entails “getting her groove on.” The phrase comes from the late 60s and means to come home to your true self and bring that self as a living, breathing honesty into each moment of your life. In getting your groove on, you are the moment, and the moment is you. 

Like Harris, most politicians miss this. Since she is a leader on the stump and must communicate as a leader, the first thing to understand about getting her groove on is what leadership is about. Leadership is getting people to think, speak, and especially act to go from point A to point B. In a politician’s electioneering, that action is “vote for me.” The most effective leadership communication is not about ordering people to go from point A to point B. You can’t do that in a fair election. It’s about having those people want to go from A to B. Getting that “want to,"  that vote, is more than simply formatting and communicating information, which in our political culture most candidates, including Harris, do, but about establishing emotional connections that facilitate “want to.” Both are necessary, yet few leaders employ them together. After all, throughout history, whenever a leader needed to have people achieve exceptional results, that leader gathered them together and reached into their hearts by speaking from the heart. 

Up till now, Harris has not, in the right leadership ways, taken advantage of the motivational connection opportunities intrinsic to her identity. 

Taking advantage of those opportunities is vital, for they transcend the usual attacks coming her way not simply because they are about her but because they provide solutions to the problems of most voters. 

To tackle those election-changing opportunities by getting her groove on, Harris must come home to herself by honestly remembering and feeling her critical life’s experiences. She did that to great effect in your convention speech. But that’s not all. If she leaves it simply as a description of her upbringing, she misses the point. The point is, getting her groove on entails communicating in such a way that she transfers her feelings about the experiences of her life to millions of voters so they feel as she does. The difference between simple description and the transfer can be the difference between losing and winning this election. 

This coming home, this motivational transfer, is not only possible, it’s necessary to win. Here is how she can do it, do what she is not doing now. 

IDENTIFY. Who is Kamala Harris? She came home to herself in her convention speech but especially in her book, “The Truths We Hold.” The book describes how being black challenged her while she embraced the Indian, American and Caribbean elements of her family. Those elements were given a rich expression through her family’s struggles in advancing civil rights. The book challenges readers to use their own values to guide their decisions and become leaders in their own lives.

Unfortunately, she has not systematically injected the formative experiences described in that book into her communications in ways that will make the transfer happen consistently.  Clearly, Harris’ skin color and her multi-cultural upbringing have provided her with many defining experiences. 

Though she described them effectively, she not have had her audience live them and so is missing out. Once not just communicated but transferred, such experiences could bind voters in important emotional ways to her. Such biding can transcend politics as evidenced by the blue-collar Democrats who voted heavily in favor of Republican Reagan. 

PREPARE. That Harris is motivated by her experiences is not the issue. Her motivation is irrelevant. If she weren’t motivated, she shouldn’t be leading the Democratic ticket. What is the issue, what is relevant is her ability to trigger motivational transfer. 

To do so, she must prepare the ground before she can make it happen. The most effective way to prepare the ground is to come to grips with the facts of each experience that provided the powerful experience. 

COMMUNICATE: In leadership communication, the message is not only the message, the message is also the messenger. Wrapping a message in an inspired person is an exceptional way to communicate it. 

Here is the crux of the Harri’s communication challenge: To transfer her motivation by getting her groove on, she must do two things: 1) convey the facts of those experiences that triggered the emotions as solutions to the needs of middle-class voters. 2) animate those facts in ways that have those voters believe those facts are not just about her but themselves.

For instance, choosing to attend Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C. rather than tradionally-prestigious Stanford was a deeply personal decision not lightly made. It’s a   decision that hold great communication promise. That decision came from her lived values growing up in an immigrant family, a split family since her father left when she was three. Those values transcend Stanford and Howard embrace a universal human condition all voters have experienced in one way or the other, a condition stemming from bringing their values as solutions to the difficult problems in their lives. Telling voters, in a sense, when speaking of that choice, “I’m not talking about me but about you and how to live by your most cherished values.” The vast middle-class voters she must reach predominately are shaped by values. Such experience, in which voters see themselves in the choices she made through her values as solutions to the problems of their needs transcend political talking points can. 

People might argue, “how can a person of colour relate to whites?” The answer is that values cement culture-transcending relationships. Take Muhammad Ali, his quote “I ain’t got nothing against them Cong,” lead to a proposed five-year prison sentence and $10K fine when he was the heavyweight champion. Nine-years later, Ali was given the honor of lighting the Olympic flame in the recent Jim Crow afflicted city of Atlanta, Georgia. Living his values, Ali became a universal man. Harris has the same opportunity. Getting her groove on by being a universal woman, she can become unstoppable.

Being defined by a melting-pot background that resonates with millions of Americans, the closeness of the race indicates Harris has so far failed to take advantage of this communication opportunity which would immensely enhance her effectiveness on the stump in this election. 

Her core belief that the backbone of the American economic system is the middle class, augmented by deeply held values, is an electorate vision that will be nothing more than fodder for a brochure, if not animated by the motivational transference 

DELIVER getting her goove on entails more than identification and the talking of teleprompter bullet points. It entails dynamic delivery. She must get away from the prompter, get away from the podium, and walk the stages with hand mikes, and speak the motivational transfer with passion and precision. 

One thing had to take place throughout history when people needed to accomplish great things, a leadership to gather them together and speak from the heart. She does this heartfelt speaking off script by herself in social situations. She is humorous, empathetic, and joyfully positive. Transferring that persona into her electioneering persona will connect her vitally with the voters.    

Cementing a formidable bonding with middle-class America, she will garner significant portions of voters who otherwise would have stayed away from the polls or even not voted for Biden.  

Such an outreach must not be done ad hoc but integrated into a strategic, comprehensive, coordinated campaign that will provide strong coattails in this year’s elections.

Getting her groove on by communicating her rich background in these ways, Harris can make for a compelling transformation in our nation’s, political landscape.

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The author of some 40 published books, Brent Filson’s latest two leadership books are: “The Leadership Talk: 7 Days to Motivating People to Achieve Exceptional Results” and “107 Ways to Achieve Great Leadership Talks.” A former Marine infantry platoon and company commander, he is the founder of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc., which for 40 years has helped thousands of leaders of all ranks and functions in top companies worldwide achieve sustained increases in hard, measured results. He has published some 150 articles on leadership and been a guest on scores of radio/tv shows. His mission is to have leaders replace their traditional presentations with his specially developed, motivating process, The Leadership Talk. www.brentfilson.com and theleadershiptalk.com.

Besides having lectured about the Leadership Talk at MIT Sloan School of Management, Columbia University, Wake Forest, Villanova, Williams, Middlebury, Filson brought the Leadership Talk to leaders in these organizations: Abbott, Ameritech, Anheuser-Busch, Armstrong World Industries, AT&T, BASF, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Bose, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Campbell Sales, Canadian Government, CNA, DuPont, Eaton Corporation, Exelon, First Energy, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, GTE, Hartford Steam Boiler, Hershey Foods, Honeywell, Houghton Mifflin, IBM, Meals-on-Wheels, Merck, Miller Brewing Company, NASA, PaineWebber, Polaroid, Price Waterhouse, Roadway Express, Sears Roebuck, Spalding International, Southern Company, The United Nations, Unilever, UPS, Union Carbide, United Dominion Industries, U.S. Steel, Vermont State Police, Warner Lambert — and more