Trudeau and the trouble of competing loyalties

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/01/2025 (269 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The unsurprising news about the planned departure of Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister got me to thinking about the meaning of, and the interactions in practice among, the three big phenomena of leadership, followership and loyalty in political life.

Each of the phenomena is complex, variable and contentious.

Whole forests have been sacrificed on the topic of leadership, with many different theories and models of ideal leadership contending for ascendancy during different time periods. For a long time, the idea that all successful leaders possess certain personal traits and an identifiable set of skills held sway.

Recently it has been more widely recognized that leadership is more a collective group process than a set of individual characteristics. In that process, individuals motivate and influence one another while working toward a shared goal or purpose. In this model, the distinction between leaders and followers becomes blurred. Influence flows in both directions and in certain situations followers become leaders.

Leadership involves more than just occupying a formal role within an organization. However, we should not be deluded by recent talk of breaking down the hierarchy, teamwork and empowering followers. There is always someone who makes decisions and shapes the culture and interpersonal climate within an organization, which in turn mould the behaviour of others.

How leadership is understood and practised depends on the context in which it is happening. Too little attention has been paid to the personal qualities, knowledge and skills required of political leaders than to leaders of corporations.

Recently scholars have moved away from a fixation on leaders and are paying more attention to the crucial role of followers in terms of how they define their roles and how they may impact leaders.

Just as there are different types of leaders, followers fall into different categories. A leading study identified five styles of followership: sheep, who are wholly passive; yes-people, who enthusiastically do what the boss wants; alienated followers who think the leader is taking the organization in the wrong direction; pragmatists, who go along to get along; and stars, who think for themselves, have high positivity and energy and are prepared to offer constructive criticism.

There cannot be enduring successful leadership without committed and loyal followers. In general loyalty involves identification with and support for a person, an institution, an idea, a duty or a cause. Loyalty involves both attitudes and behaviours. It can reflect a character trait, develop as an emotional attachment, or reflect calculation about what is at stake.

Transferring these thoughts to the political realm would take more space than is available here so some brief points will have to suffice.

Politics is conducted as a team sport involving loyalty and cohesion. As the head of a competitive party, leaders gain office by election, which sets them apart from most other leaders. The head of the leading party in the House of Commons normally becomes prime minister and acquires a range of prerogatives, such as the appointment of cabinet that provide leverage in relation to followers.

Our politics have become highly personalized with success heavily dependent on the personality, communications style, image and reputation of the party leaders. Identification with the party, recognition that they have been elected on the coattails of their leader, the career incentives that exist for team play and the adversarial proceedings of the House of Commons, all combine to produce high levels of party solidarity. For example, over 90 per cent of the time MPs vote along party lines.

Critics argue there is too much blind loyalty which weakens the institution, limits accountability, sometimes contributes to corruption, erodes public trust and over time damages the performance of leaders and parties.

Loyalty is easiest during the good times, but it is most important when leaders and their parties experience political troubles such as those faced by Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. A recent national poll placed support for the Liberals at 16 per cent, the lowest in the history of the party. There was a pending confidence vote in the House of Commons which in all likelihood the party would have lost, forcing an election. Instead Trudeau sought and appropriately obtained from the governor general a prorogation that paused the work of Parliament until March 24. This gives time for a leadership contest and a chance for the party to establish the outlines of a new policy agenda.

The current crisis provides a dramatic illustration of how leaders and followers must wrestle with competing loyalties. Liberal MPs had to decide whether their primary loyalty was to the current leader, the long term future of the party, the interests/opinions of their constituents or the interests of the country facing the tariff threats from the incoming Trump administration. For the ambitious among them, calculations about career advancement probably shaped decisions about where to place their loyalty.

Trudeau had governed during an exceedingly difficult time. His government developed a positive, but unfinished policy legacy on files like child poverty and reconciliation, which was a source of pride and loyalty. Despite becoming highly unpopular personally and with his party trailing badly in the polls, he nevertheless survived several high profile cabinet departures and bouts of caucus unrest, which likely drained the prior deep reservoir of loyalty to him as leader.

Success and survival probably reinforced feelings of entitlement and indispensability on his part and delayed recognition that his continued leadership had become untenable.

Paul G. Thomas is professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba