Leaders make the world go 'round

If you haven't seen the most recent episode of The Apprentice, showing on 27 October, the following blog contains spoilers. Read at your own risk of being disappointed that you heard the ending before you saw the show.

Another of my favorite shows on TV is The Apprentice. It is the only reality show I watch, besides The Amazing Race. I like The Apprentice for several reasons, one of them being Donald Trump.

(I only watch the reality shows that I would actually want to be on. I used to watch Fear Factor, but I realized that if I wanted to eat bugs, I could just step outside of my own house. Plus, I'm not a pretty boy, and I'm probably too old for the show anyway.)

I personally think Donald Trump is one of the finest leaders of our time. Sure, he can make lots of money in a little bit of time, but I think that his shining talent is his leadership ability. He is one of the few people that I have seen that knows and understands leadership, politicians included.

See, on the show, I think that we at home have a bit of an unfair advantage. Essentially, we see what the producers of the show want us to see. All of TV is like that. So, even though The Apprentice is a reality show, most of what we see is staged. For tonight's task, we saw two tasks that lasted over the course of a couple days, but all we saw were highlights that lasted a total of maybe 30 minutes. TV provides a perfect projection of hindsight for us. For instance, when Jen proclaimed that she could sell 8 speed guns, that ordinarily would have just been smacktalk. But, it was actually engineered to be an allusion. How many of the show's contestants made claims of some sort, but because their team won, or for whatever other reason, it was never thrown in their face or shown on the show? I guess we'll never know because it didn't matter.

Anyway, Trump fired more than half of Excel tonight, four members in all. I don't even remember their names, except for Jen and Josh, and only them because I was sure one of them was going to be fired tonight. But, this is the way I wish he would run The Apprentice. From the first episode there have been several contestants that just needed to be fired from day one. But, I guess because of contractual obligations, he is not able to fire all of the incompetent ones straight off. You know the ones I'm talking about. They are the ones that you just know won't go the whole way and it is pointless wasting everyone's time dragging them along for the ride.

But, in a way, I understand and agree with The Donald's way of doing business. I've watched every single episode of The Apprentice since day one. And for some reason, I get the idea that most or all of the contestants on the show have not. For instance, I know that Mr. Trump cares less about the interpersonal relationships- or lack thereof- than he does about the success of the task. There have been at least two times this season and countless times in the previous three seasons that the Project Manager (PM) has brought someone into the Boardroom because of personal reasons (read: drama) when in fact, this person did not actually contribute to the loss of the task. And nearly every time this happens, the PM gets fired, not the contestant who causes the drama. And while it is shocking when it happens, the strategy that Mr. Trump is employing is very, very smart.

Ask anyone what their definition of leadership is and you are likely to get varieties of answers. You'll hear that leadership is the ability to influence others. You'll hear that leadership is the ability to create more leaders. You'll hear lots and lots of different answers. But, one of the less-discussed aspects of leadership is being able to get to the root causes of failure and fix it, despite personal feelings.

I think, nay, I know that Mr. Trump understands how complex human interactions are. He knows that personal feelings get in the way of reality. And he clearly likes a few of the contestants. (There was one last season, Chris, that he had quite the affinity for, but he fired him because the guy had anger management issues, which caused problems during a couple of the tasks.) But, despite his personal feelings for the contestants, he is able to pick out who is the guilty party in the failure of the task.

On at least one occasion this season, Markus, a total weirdo and non-Apprentice material, was spared the axe because the PM brought him in because of personal feelings, not because of job performance. Markus' time will come, but only when he slips up and is responsible for the failure of the task. And a good PM will know that time. As long as Markus continues to not be responsible for the failure of the task and only provides drama, I predict that he won't be fired and that the PM who drags him into the Boardroom will be. This is too bad, actually, because many talented contestants have met their doom because of this. But, they deserved it for letting personal feelings about a contestant get in the way of why the task failed.

So, I don't really watch The Apprentice because of the great tasks or the drama. I watch because every episode is chock full of great leadership tips which I sincerely enjoy. Plus, I'm taking notes so that when my time comes, the only thing I'll hear is, "You're Hired!"