The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World

In this hit-or-miss guide, Ramanna (Political Standards), a business professor at Oxford University, recommends CEOs, politicians, and other leaders navigate public relations crises by analyzing the roots of the controversy, formulating a response, corralling stakeholders behind a plan, and preparing their organization to better weather future firestorms. Ramanna illustrates how to go about each step with in-depth case studies. For instance, he describes how the chief medical officer of Oxford University Hospitals quelled a surgeon revolt during the early days of Covid by giving doctors the discretion to decide whether to follow government orders requiring they proceed with elective surgeries. (Once empowered, most doctors set aside their objections and obeyed.) Ramanna’s systematic thinking is easy to digest (for instance, he enumerates “three drivers of outrage” and four steps to “make sense of a moment of crisis”), but the pragmatic focus on making hard decisions sometimes verges on indifference toward the moral considerations involved. For instance, he presents a Brazilian education official’s decision to save a long-gestating, politically imperiled common curriculum plan by nixing pro-LGBTQ language opposed by the country’s Evangelical Caucus as a regrettable if necessary sacrifice. There are some good suggestions on leading through troubled times, but curiously little consideration of how to weigh the potential ethical costs. This doesn’t quite stick the landing. (Oct.)