The Lincoln Project: reflections on governance, leadership and management

Part 2

Tune in to Showtime to watch the just-released, five-part docuseries, “The Lincoln Project,” executive produced by Fisher Stevens and Karim Amer. If you aren’t a current Showtime subscriber, you can sign up for a free trial.

As I previously shared, I am going to do a series of essays over the coming days focused on the issues that arose from the Lincoln Project’s meteoric rise, and the lessons learned from that experience. For those who have watched the docuseries, my intention is also to connect the dots for some details and events that were not explicitly made clear.

Today, I am focusing on the topics of governance, leadership and management. The rise and fall of the Lincoln Project offer lessons for any organization or team. Watching the dynamics of the human beings inside the organization who became incandescently famous overnight is revelatory.

To be clear — as it seems that there are many who remain unaware — I am no longer associated with the organization that I founded. It is also important to provide context on the players, their roles and how the organization was structured.

The Lincoln Project was founded and initially led by Rick Wilson, John Weaver, Reed Galen and me. It was comprised of a four-person management committee, each with clearly defined roles. I was its chief strategist. My sole focus was defeating Trump. Rick was the creative director with whom I worked to bring our strategy to life. Reed was the operations director, in charge of HR/talent, legal, compliance and fundraising. Functionally, he was the campaign manager. John was also a strategist until he went on medical leave in August 2020. Stuart Stevens, a senior advisor, joined the Lincoln Project in the spring of 2020, and in essence, replaced John. Stuart took that role to the next level when John went on leave. Each morning, this team would meet to discuss strategy.

Others involved included:

• George Conway, another co-founder, was — and is — a leading conservative intellectual who had turned against Trump. He was asked to co-sign The New York Times op-ed that launched the Lincoln Project. He was not involved in the strategy nor daily operations of the Lincoln Project.

• Sarah Lenti, executive director, was one of the first people hired by Reed Galen. She had longstanding relationships with both Reed and John.

• Ron Steslow, a Lincoln Project co-founder in name only, and founder of Tusk Digital, was hired as the digital data vendor, at John’s recommendation.

• Mike Madrid, a Lincoln Project co-founder in name only, and a California direct mail vendor, ran the targeting program.

• Jennifer Horn, a Lincoln Project co-founder in name only, was the former chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party. A contract employee, she, too, was recommended by John.

Titles and their meaning matter

Ron, Mike and Jennifer all asked for, and were granted, a co-founder honorific just prior to the inaugural Lincoln Project public event, held at Cooper Union, in February 2020. They were never part of the management committee, nor were they ever involved in senior decision-making within the organization.

When their request for the title was made, I didn’t think much of it. All I cared about was that they perform the jobs that they were hired to do. I should have known better as titles are a growing issue that plagues most organizations in today’s narcissistic culture. In hindsight, I should have realized that titles do matter because people who lack authority based on organizational structure can abuse those titles for their own benefit and self-promotion. This also led to factionalism within the organization. Unfortunately, as the Lincoln Project rose in notoriety, those with co-founder titles in name only behaved as though they had equal voice and influence to those on the management committee. Here is one example of this:

Devoid of governance

The Lincoln Project is a super PAC. Under the law, it is required to have a board of directors – something that I admit I was not aware of. Campaign committees do not have this requirement. It was my first super PAC, and common sense demands that legal compliance be left to the general counsel. Reed and the general counsel constituted a Lincoln Project board. Reed appointed himself chair of the three-person, all-male board. He was also the largest vendor of the Lincoln Project. The second person whom he added was Ron Steslow, a co-founder in name only, and important to note, the second highest paid vendor for the organization. The final person added to the board was another vendor with an honorary title, Mike Madrid.

Rick and I were never aware that a board existed until after Joe Biden was elected president. I remain shocked and aghast that such a board was ever constituted with the permission of the general counsel and Reed Galen. It was a Chernobyl of self- dealing and conflicts of interest.

Before starting the Lincoln Project, I resigned service on a corporate board. Every conceivable standard of conduct, propriety, ethics and governance was shattered by the Lincoln Project board. My very brief tenure on it was for the purposes of professionalizing and diversifying the board. I have no confidence whatsoever in the board of the Lincoln Project.

Collectively, a board of directors has a number of responsibilities, including determining a governance structure and organizational policies, maintaining fiscal responsibility and ensuring transparency in all communications to stakeholders. Individually, each board member has a responsibility to act in the best interests of the organization, and to ensure that he/she avoids conflicts of interest.

Prior to the election, the board had never met, nor made any decisions. It was truly astonishing to watch a scene in the documentary in which Mike is filmed talking about his “fiduciary obligations,” while objecting to Rick and I joining the board of the organization that we started. At the same time that this was unfolding, both Mike and Ron were in the midst of trying to negotiate a renewal of their vendor contracts with the Lincoln Project through Reed — as they sat on the board of directors. A complete conflict of interest.

Once we learned of the board’s existence, both Rick and I were aghast to learn that we had functionally lost control of the organization. The documentary shows how angry and aggrieved Mike Madrid was. Mike ultimately used his board seat to shake down the organization for a $1 million dollar payout that he should never have been given. I was against it. I was disgusted by it then. I remain so now. The only time Ron Steslow and Mike Madrid ever used their authority to convene a board meeting occurred after Biden was president-elect. This is an important point that I will come back to when I talk about the John Weaver scandal. They used the occasion to enrich themselves.

Worsening matters, Ron, who held all of the Lincoln Project data, kept it hostage during this time. The Lincoln Project lost control of the personal data of hundreds of thousands of donors, which compromised the $100 million donation base. Neither Reed nor the general counsel had access to it while Ron was ransoming the data for his $1 million payout. My position was that we needed to notify donors, call the FBI and hold a news conference to convey what was going on. I was overruled.

The board was a case study in conflicts of interest and a failure of fiduciary responsibility. It was comprised of vendors picked by another vendor that never met — and dissolved into the instrument that destroyed the organization. The governance disaster still plagues the organization in the form of excessive legal bills paid to the “fixer” who oversaw the payout and response strategies to the various disasters.

Out-of-control growth just weeks before the election

Beyond the egregious governance issues, there was a lack of discipline related to managing the growth of the Lincoln Project as it experienced its meteoric rise. This is a classic lesson from so many start-ups. By October — with an election just one month away — the Lincoln Project was on a trajectory to have an infinite number of interns.

Simply because the organization was gaining more notoriety and raising more money, didn’t necessarily mean that a commensurate number of staff needed to be hired. When a campaign ends, it is time to go home. Yet, after the election, Reed covertly secured vast office space to house the future home of the Lincoln Project before there was a clear mission for the organization post-election. The empty, cavernous office is another stunning visual that portends the coming doom. Expansion without strategy and growth without purpose are lethal in any organization.

A lack of leadership “EQ”

A combustible mix of self-importance, arrogance, grievance and despicable behaviour amongst several leaders is revealed throughout the documentary. For example…

When Rick sees an ad for the first time, and reacts in the most unbelievably inappropriate and offensive way possible:

When Rick places a call to his manager at United Talent Agency to leak a story to Axios — unbeknownst to anyone else at the Lincoln Project, as was evidenced in the scene where I and others are on a Zoom call and are shocked to have learned about this following the publication of the story — that the Lincoln Project is set to launch a media company and arrogantly speaks about the $25 - 55 million valuation of this non-existent venture while in the presence of two staffers:

When Mike delivers a rant to “his” political team about not being included in a New Yorker profile of the Lincoln Project:

When, in the last episode, after the organization has been destroyed, there is a scene that is striking. Reed is filmed walking in the Uinta Mountains and says, “I love leading people, but that’s different from managing an organization.” He adds — without any irony — that “somebody’s got to do it.” He continues by inferring that he is the leader of a movement of millions.

What the documentary reveals, however, is that the staff, to a large extent, feel leaderless and mismanaged. Sarah Lenti expresses her frustrations and powerlessness in dealing with Reed. The political team, led by Mike, is separate from, and to some extent, working at cross-purposes with the rest of the Lincoln Project team. The staff feel unappreciated as there is little to no gratitude expressed for their efforts — usually undertaken under tremendous stress and timelines.

As the board dispute is playing out behind the scenes, a bewildered and confused staff has no idea what is happening because their leader, Reed, has not communicated with them for three entire weeks. It is no surprise that this leads to self-pity and/or feelings of resentment.

Politics is a cutthroat business. Campaigns are finite and intense. Leading and managing a political team requires discipline, rigour and toughness, but it also requires softer skills like transparency, empathy, honesty and gratitude. The absence of gratitude destroys a culture and an appreciation for a rewarding experience.

Next, I will focus on fame, entitlement and grievance.