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How to become a truly strong leader

Published: 22 Apr. 2024, 20:06

Lee Ha-kyung
The author is a senior columnist of the JoongAng Ilbo.

President Yoon Suk Yeol is finally meeting with majority Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung. Fortunately, they will sit down for talks. Regrettably, however, the conservative government has lost its momentum to build synergy over the past two years. Also disappointing was President Yoon’s message to the public, which was delivered through a Cabinet meeting six days after the governing People Power Party (PPP)’s crushing defeat in the April 10 parliamentary elections.

The bottom line of the presidential message was: “My direction of national governance was right, and I did my best, but I felt upset that the people could not recognize it.” Four hours later, his aides relayed a “sorry” from the president, but it felt insincere.

Yoon is stuck in a surreal world of mental victory, despite the public disapproval of his domineering governance style, as explicitly revealed in the PPP’s landslide defeat. In the lead-up to the legislative election, the president said, “Economic populism is like a drug,” harshly attacking the opposition. Even former Rep. Yun Hee-suk, who fought against populism, now tells a different story. Having experienced the people’s sentiment in the capital region firsthand while campaigning for her lost bid for the election, Yun said, “The wise populism is to support people pushed to the limit to get back on their feet, even if it means compromising fiscal health.” Who is really blocking the president’s eyes and ears?

Rumors are rampant that the president attributes the election loss to former PPP interim leader Han Dong-hoon, as the president believes Han focused on preparing himself for the next presidential election instead of promoting the Yoon administration’s policies during the campaign. But reality points in the opposite direction.

Allegations against the president were nearly endless. Just think of all the controversy over the first lady’s reception of a Dior handbag from a suspicious pastor, the former defense minister’s hurried departure from Korea to take up his new role as ambassador to Australia, and the president’s alleged insensitivity to soaring prices. Even in drafting the president’s message to the public, presidential aides such as Yoon’s chief of staff and other senior secretaries were excluded.

“The president makes decisions in meetings with his staff, but then says something completely different after going to his official residence,” his aides said. “The most urgent and important thing is to end the politics done in the presidential residence.” It is no wonder Yoon’s approval rating plummeted to 23 percent, lower than the 25 percent approval rating of former President Park Geun-hye shortly after the Choi Soon-sil scandal erupted.

Yoon’s aides even say that they should be ready to lose their jobs if they give him their straightforward advice. If elder statesmen and friends selflessly deliver bitter advice to the president, they cannot talk with him later. Even during the reign of King Sejong the Great, officials needed courage to speak up to him. No wonder the king lamented a lack of people who spoke boldly in front of him or argued against him.

President Yoon must end his relations with his secret aides, encourage his official aides to speak frankly, and listen to their advice. The same goes for his approach to the DP. The opposition is an essential mechanism to systematically reflect different opinions in party politics. Ignoring the opposition is not democracy.

The president must seriously deal with allegations surrounding his wife. The presidential office and the leadership of the prosecution are in conflict over how to handle the first lady’s alleged stock price manipulation, for instance. The general public also opposes a presidential veto of a special bill on appointing an independent counsel to investigate the case.

If the first lady is excused just because she is the wife of the president, how can Yoon justify the investigation of the family of former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, now the leader of the Rebuilding Korea Party, which caused the collapse of the entire family over the children’s admission frauds? “Equality before the law,” stipulated in Clause 1 of Article 11 of the Constitution, will fall apart.

René Descartes was not convinced that the world was real, not a dream. This fierce power of discernment enabled him to become a philosopher, mathematician and scientist who heralded the dawn of the modern age ruled by reason. Power is moving another person with one’s own will. Therefore, the essence of power is violence. The president is a politician at the apex of this. He can only be forgiven when he succeeds by fulfilling Max Weber’s ethics of responsibility. Seeking cooperation from the opposition to make up for imperfections is a matter of life and death.

The United States and the Soviet Union were the two great powers who ended World War II against Fascism. We live in a space of ferocious geopolitics in the Korean Peninsula, where these two former allies had drawn China into a “mini-World War III” in just five years.

Belligerent, nuclear-armed North Korea and China and Russia are getting closer just like in the past. We must stop internal fights and unite. This is one of the many reasons why Yoon must meet with the opposition leader whenever needed. Although the DP outnumber the PPP, working with the opposition in partnership will resolve many problems. The Roh Tae-woo administration, which was in a similar situation, succeeded in both domestic and foreign affairs. Cooperative politics will make the people feel comfortable and make the president truly stronger.