Can Your Candidate Handle the Job?
How Can We Avoid Electing the Wrong Leaders This Year?
How We Can Avoid Nonleader Candidates Like the Turtle, Bureaucrat, Screamer, and Idealist?
With the 2024 Nova Scotia municipal elections around the corner, we find ourselves in a familiar situation: a ballot full of candidates, many of whom are well-meaning, amiable, and eager to help. Yet, as Geoff Smart emphasizes in Leadocracy, the traits that make someone likeable do not necessarily make them an effective leader. The stakes are too high to settle for anything less than an expert in change management.
We’re not hiring for a popularity contest. As citizens, officeholders of the highest degree—described by Ludwig von Mises in his book Bureaucracy—we have a duty to hire candidates who can lead, not just smile for photo ops. The civil service, a permanent structure of unprecedented size and power, moves like a slow-turning ship. It doesn’t matter how good our policies are if the right person isn’t at the helm to course-correct.
The trick is getting informed about the true nature of the job and what we should expect from it. It’s not mysterious. Here it is all laid out in this handy dandy “So You’ve Been elected!” guide from the Province. Note, particularly, the ‘responsibilities’ of the Mayor. We also need to understand what most commonly goes wrong and why we’re often disappointed with our choices. It’s no good to hire someone as a citizen representative if they’re going to transform into a government shop steward.
Captured!
It’s similar to what happens in fraternities, often called initiation or hazing. It’s a process where new members undergo rituals or tests that mold them into the group’s culture and mindset. In the case of elected officials, this could be thought of as a form of institutionalization or indoctrination—where the pressure to conform to the existing bureaucracy slowly shapes them into defenders of the status quo, rather than the agents of change they once claimed to be.
The phenomenon is often called capture. This is when an outsider, brought in with fresh ideas, ends up being co-opted or absorbed into the existing system. The entrenched bureaucratic culture gradually wears down their resolve, making them more sympathetic to the system they were elected to reform. It’s like they go from being a citizen representative to a government shop steward, advocating for the very institution they were sent to challenge.
This process can feel like bureaucratic osmosis—where the individual absorbs the culture and values of the institution, often without even realizing it. Once inside, they become more aligned with the internal forces that resist change than with the electorate that put them there. It’s a gradual but powerful transformation, and we see it all too often in politics.
I can’t state the dangerous problem of Bureaucracy more strongly than Von Mises himself:
Bureaucrats are free to decide according to their own discretion questions of vital importance for the individual citizen's life. It is true that the officeholders are no longer the servants of the citizenry but irresponsible and arbitrary masters and tyrants. But this is not the fault of bureaucracy. It is the outcome of the new system of government which restricts the individual's freedom to manage his own affairs and assigns· more and more tasks to the government. The culprit is not the bureaucrat but the political system.
The political system depends on engaged citizens constantly imagining more and better, and “hiring” the best possible leaders to create good changes toward our goal. In our modern system, the job, seldom done well, is to keep the bureaucracy in check.
If we don’t want the bureaucracy to be irresponsible and arbitrary despots, petty potentates in a Utopia of Rules, or inconsistent and capricious judges we must be responsible to know and act.
I’m going to continue quoting Bureaucracy at length, a nearly 100-year-old book that could have been written tomorrow…
ECONOMICS VERSUS PLANNING
This is entirely an economic problem. It cannot be decided without entering into a full scrutiny of economics. The spurious catchwords and fallacious doctrines of the advocates of government control, socialism, communism, planning, and totalitarianism cannot be unmasked except by economic reasoning. Whether one likes it or not, it is a fact that the main issues of present-day politics are purely economic and cannot be understood without a grasp of economic theory. Only a man conversant with the main problems of economics is in a position to form an independent opinion on the problems involved. All the others are merely repeating what they have picked up by the way. They are an easy prey to demagogic swindlers and idiotic quacks. Their gullibility is the most serious menace to the preservation of democracy and to Western civilization.
The first duty of a citizen of a democratic community is to educate himself and to acquire the knowledge needed for dealing with civic affairs. The franchise is not a privilege but a duty and a moral responsibility. The voter is virtually an officeholder; his office is the supreme one and implies the highest obligation.
Ennie, Meanie, Minee, Moe
So how do we recognize the right candidate? By understanding who to avoid: the Turtle, the Bureaucrat, the Screamer, and the Idealist. These archetypes are all too common in modern elections, and though they may appear to be strong options at first glance, their leadership failures are predictable.
The Turtle: Avoiding Conflict at All Costs
The Turtle candidate is cautious, afraid of making mistakes, and paralyzed by the fear of backlash. They avoid risk, preferring inaction over controversy. Their idea of leadership is maintaining the status quo, keeping their head down, and hoping everything works out. But municipal governance is about moving forward, not hiding from tough decisions. In a world where the problems we face grow in complexity, the Turtle is unequipped to lead. A real leader is willing to make tough, sometimes unpopular, choices to generate meaningful progress.
The Bureaucrat: Box-Checking Without Vision
The Bureaucrat is an expert in rules, regulations, and process. Their comfort zone is the red tape, thriving on policy details but often missing the bigger picture. They excel in maintaining systems, but leadership demands more than just maintenance. It requires vision, the ability to inspire, and the talent for managing change. The Bureaucrat doesn’t lead; they administer. And administration alone won’t fix our infrastructure problems, housing shortages, or growing environmental challenges. In a candidate, we need more than a checklist mentality—we need strategic thinking that can break free from bureaucratic inertia.
The Screamer: All Talk, No Action
In contrast to the Turtle, the Screamer thrives on noise. They rally public outrage, thrive on pointing fingers, and stir the pot for attention. They’ll tell us how bad everything is, how broken the system has become, but they rarely offer actionable solutions. The Screamer’s leadership is performative, not practical. Effective leadership isn’t about volume; it’s about results. While they may be great at grabbing headlines, Screamers rarely get things done. Municipal governments don’t need shouting matches—they need leaders with the temperament to bring diverse interests together to solve problems.
The Idealist: Lost in Theories, Failing in Practice
The Idealist candidate comes with noble intentions, often armed with ideas from books, conferences, and think tanks. Their plans are grand, sweeping, and often impractical. While they may have an appealing vision for a better world, they struggle to implement it. They fail to grasp the reality of working with limited resources, entrenched interests, and a slow-moving bureaucracy. The Idealist can inspire but often lacks the tactical know-how to turn those ideals into actionable plans. In governance, you need more than vision—you need pragmatism, grounded in the practical realities of running a city.
Hiring Leaders to Manage Change
In the end, what we need are leaders who understand that municipal government is a system of systems—where real power lies less in titles and more in the ability to influence, inspire, and manage people toward a shared goal. We’re not looking for the friendliest or most charismatic candidate; we’re looking for someone who understands the daunting task ahead: leading without total control, steering an unmovable civil service into action, and achieving results in the face of deeply ingrained processes and limited resources.
Our next leaders must be experts in change management. They should have a proven ability to take entrenched institutions—like Nova Scotia’s civil service—and turn the ship in a new direction. That requires not just skill, but tenacity, resilience, and an unwavering focus on the end goal.
It’s easy to be tempted by candidates who make us feel good—the friendliest, the most passionate, or the loudest. Our last Mayor offended nobody. But at this critical moment of change, we need more. We need leaders who can manage complex systems, lead with vision and pragmatism, and have the courage to drive meaningful change. Let’s not settle for less. Let's elect leaders who can deliver.