Card games were a big part of my life growing up. I loved playing Canasta with my grandmother as a kid. In high school, I formed a bridge group with my friends. We would play once a week on Saturday nights—so much for our dating lives. Our whole family still gathers once a year for the annual spoons contest, with four generations fiercely competing to be crowned champion and to receive the highly prized trophy—a spoon glued to a piece of drift wood from the beach with the names of all previous winners written down the side. I’ve watched with great pride as my granddaughter has evolved from being one of the first “out” as a four-year-old to a champion as a 13-year-old.
What I loved most about cards was that the games served as a gathering point to engage socially, have fun, and sharpen skills. I learned the relative value of each card and how one suit trumped another. To win at Hearts meant avoiding the Queen of Spades, positioning for the Jack of Diamonds, and trying to collect as few Hearts as possible. I found that the best strategy was to be an invisible as possible. The quiet sleuths often win.
How people play cards can provide helpful insights on how they live their lives or lead their organizations. Some of the best leaders I know are excellent poker players. So before we get into this post, let me define the terms and set the rules for the dangerous game of “cards” we are playing with our politics and planet in the Age of Trump.
As an introduction, let’s acknowledge that the “game” we are playing takes place in a context shaped by false ACES: Appearance. Celebrity. Entertainment. Style. In this game, the ACES define the cultural conditions and identify what captures attention.
ACES are not inherently bad. In fact, they win a lot of hands. Appearance matters. Celebrity can occasionally draw attention to worthy causes. Entertainment can enlighten. Style can communicate.. The problem begins when these qualities become substitutes for judgment, competence, and character. And this existential game we are playing is not only highly influenced by those ACES, they are also amplified by social media, digitization, and the virtual nature of communication.
When appearance becomes more important than substance, spectacle becomes more important than truth. That creates the cultural conditions for something more dangerous – a new breed of KINGS: Kleptocrats. Incompetents. Narcissists. Grifters. Solipsists. KINGS describe the behaviors that can be predicted in an ACES culture. The wannabe KINGS in this game seek power in a culture that permits such people to thrive and then capitalize on its obsession with ACES.
KINGS are not necessarily literal kings. KINGS treat public institutions as personal property. They confuse authority with entitlement. They regard expertise as an inconvenience and accountability as an attack. They surround themselves with people who tell them what they want to hear. They turn grievance into currency, attention into power, and public office into personal theater.
The ACES culture creates the stage. The KINGS learn how to dominate it. To further complicate the conditions, when solipsists are surrounded with sycophants, the game quickly turns sinister.
The problem is bigger than any particular politician, celebrity, corporation, country or political party. It is a problem of civilization: What qualities do we reward when we decide who deserves our attention, our trust, and our loyalty?
Perhaps it is time to ask a different question.
Not: Who is the loudest?
Not: Who is the most famous?
Not: Who looks the part?
Not even: Who can win?
But who is prepared to lead?
That requires a different set of qualities.
It requires QUEENS: Questions. Uncertainty. Expertise. Empathy. No-nonsense. Substance.
QUEENS begin with Questions because good leaders understand that they do not have all the answers. They are curious before they are certain. They listen before they pronounce. They ask what they may be missing.
They embrace uncertainty because accepting reality can be complicated. The world does not become simpler because a leader speaks confidently. A willingness to say I don’t know can be a sign not of weakness but of intellectual honesty—and sometimes the first step toward discovering what is true.
They value Expertise and experience because governing, managing, teaching, healing, building, and solving difficult problems require knowledge. Experience isn’t infallibility, and expertise isn’t wisdom by itself. But neither should be casually dismissed in favor of instinct, ideology, performance, or wishful thinking.
They recognize the importance of Empathy in every decision. No person, institution, nation, or business exists in isolation. Decisions have consequences that travel outward—to families, communities, economies, ecosystems, and generations yet to come. Great leaders demonstrate understanding about how decisions affect individuals and the environments in which they live, learn, and work.
They are No-Nonsense about accountability. They don’t need every problem to become a spectacle. They don’t need an enemy for every failure. They understand that leadership is, among other things, the ability to distinguish what matters from what merely attracts attention.
And finally, they believe in Substance.
- What is actually being accomplished?
- What problem is being solved?
- What evidence supports the decision?
- What happens after the cameras leave?
Those questions are more important than whether the leader is charismatic, photogenic, entertaining, or perpetually trending.
In short, in this new “game” we are playing, we have spent too much time confusing visibility with values.
For much of the past several decades, our culture has rewarded the people who command attention rather than those who command respect. We have elevated appearance, celebrity, entertainment, and style into measures of importance. We have learned to mistake making a big splash or a bold play with being consequential, being confident for being competent, and being constantly present for actually having something to say. Our trump cards are too often played for spectacle instead of success. Personal power has trumped higher purpose.
Just to be clear, this is not an implied argument that men are incapable of QUEENS leadership or that women are automatically capable of it. Obviously, biology does not confer wisdom, and women can be every bit as narcissistic, incompetent, ambitious or corrupt as men. I must say, however, that history seems more littered with the detritus of male egos than female egos.
The argument is subtler—and, I think, more consequential.
For centuries, many societies have associated leadership with traditionally masculine traits: dominance, certainty, aggression, hierarchy, competition, and the willingness to project strength. Those traits can have their uses. But when they become the dominant definition of leadership, we systematically undervalue other qualities: listening, collaboration, humility, honesty, practical experience, contextual thinking, emotional intelligence, stewardship, and the ability to live with complexity.
And that has consequences.
Perhaps the reason the word QUEENS feels provocative is precisely because we have become accustomed to imagining power as masculine. Maybe that is part of what needs to change.
We don’t need women in positions of authority merely because women are women. We need more women in positions of authority because leadership should draw from the whole range of human capabilities, and because women have historically been excluded from many of the rooms where consequential decisions are made. Last week we lost two powerful women leaders: Gloria Steinem and Dolly Parton. May their memories be a blessing and their lives an inspiration.
To summarize, ACES may command our attention, but KINGS have caused serious consequences. QUEENS may be the corrective force we need at this point in history.
KINGS represent the corruption of power:
- Kleptocrats take.
- Incompetents lack experience and expertise
- Narcissists make everything about themselves.
- Grifters con and manipulate.
- Solipsists believe their fantasies equal truth in spite of evidence to the contrary
QUEENS represent the path toward a better future through the discipline of leadership:
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· Questions |
Leaders ask before answering. |
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· Uncertainty |
Leaders admit what they don’t know and listen. |
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· Experience |
Leaders respect what has been learned from history. |
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· Empathy |
Leaders understand those affected with compassion. |
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· No-Nonsense |
Leaders separate problems from performance; they don’t lie. |
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· Substance |
Leaders produce results, not spectacle. |
The objective isn’t to replace KINGS with QUEENS as competing tribes. It is to replace a culture of domination with a culture of stewardship. It is to move from performance to competence, from certainty to curiosity, from personality to character, from spectacle to substance. From the people who demand to be seen to the people willing to see. From those who ask, How much power can I acquire? to those who ask, what can I do with the power I have? It certainly won’t happen if KINGS are surrounded by sycophants who make sure nobody tells the KINGS they are wrong. And it wouldn’t hurt in this age for QUEENS to have louder voices—to present a bold vision for the future.
QUEENS trump ACES and KINGS:
Not because every queen is wise.
Not because every king is corrupt.
But because the future cannot be built on appearance, celebrity, spectacle, ego and grievance.
We need leaders who can ask better questions, acknowledge uncertainty, respect expertise, demonstrate empathy, understand their environment, make themselves heard through the nonsense and deliver substance.
And if that means opening more doors to women—and allowing more women to lead—then perhaps the emergence of QUEENS is not merely a metaphor. Perhaps it is a necessity.
Before we give someone power, perhaps we should ask seven questions:
First, do they play by the rules of the game? Are they ethical?
Do they ask good questions?
Can they live with uncertainty?
Do they respect experience and expertise?
Can they understand lives beyond their own?
Can they cut through the nonsense?
And, finally, do they have substance and integrity?
Then:
If the answer to those questions is yes, I don’t particularly care whether the person is a man or a woman. I want them in the room. And if we want more people like that in positions of power, we should probably start looking in more places than we have historically looked.
Our current president is fond of accusing people he is trying to bully that they don’t have the cards. What he needs to know—but never will—is that QUEENS trump ACES and KINGS, and he and his fellow fascists will have to fold. May it be so.
Personally, I just hope my granddaughter will retain her trophy in our annual card game. After all, she’s the QUEEN of my heart.
