doubt, classify.” As a result of this profound philosophical dif-
ference, 20.6 million documents were classified under Bush in
2006, more than six times the number classified during the
entire Clinton presidency. As someone who has advocated
candor and transparency for at least a half century now, I am
convinced that opacity in government is the organizational
equivalent of hardening of the arteries. Opacity blocks the
free flow of information, the sine qua nonof informed decision
making and organizational health. Without candor and trans-
parency, organizations sicken and fail.
As we know from one-time insiders in the Bush White
House, the president valued loyalty above candor. There are
few absolutes in the study of leadership, but there is at least
one: No leader becomes truly great unless he or she accepts,
even embraces, candor. Candor performs many invaluable
functions within an organization. It keeps the leader from dis-
appearing into an isolation booth of sorts, built and guarded
by yes men. It forces the leader to listen to unpleasant truths
and thus helps ensure that he or she has all the data needed to
make informed decisions. We have a tendency to admire
leaders who act decisively on the basis of gut instinct. Some-
times gut reactions are a wise, efficient response that takes
into account many insights and pieces of data that are hard to
articulate but are relevant nonetheless. But gut reactions are
often nothing more than hasty choices based on too little
information. My guess is that Bush’s well-known confidence
in his gut will give instinctive leadership a bad name, at least
for a time. That should benefit us all.
As to candor, it is important to remember that it should be
reciprocal. It needs to operate both up and down because fol-
lowers also have a need to know. Leaders sometimes try to
Epilogue to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition