Playing on assumptions
Several years ago I worked as a consultant to a non-profit religious agency. In one of the agency’s fund-raising events, the founder and CEO stated in a public meeting of gathered donors that his personal annual salary was but $24,000 a year. The gathering murmured their approval and astonishment that such a distinguished and dedicated worker could subsist on that amount of money given the cost of living in the organization’s home area.
So, the impression was positive and had the desired effect of assuring the donors that the organization was meeting their expectations of frugality and prudence. Because I was a high level consultant I had access to the organization’s reports and knew that his salary was indeed $24,000 a year.
But there was something else he did not tell them, and they did not understand accounting and IRS regulations enough to ask.
According to the IRS rules, an ordained minister is able to separate his total pay package into two categories. One is his salary; the other is a housing allowance. The IRS allows an ordained minister this option because while his salary is subject to income tax and self-employment tax (Social Security), the housing allowance is subject to only income tax. This saves the wage earner money.
In the case cited above, the salary was indeed $24000, but the housing allowance was much larger making his total annual income to exceed $50,000 a year. So while he was technically correct in announcing his salary, he was playing on the audience’s assumptions that the amount comprised his total annual income when it was far, far from it. He deliberately led them to believe something that was not entirely true so as to increase their positive opinion of himself and his organization so as to build their confidence and loosen their purse strings.
It worked!
Why? Because leaders understand that the perspective and range of understanding of their audience is often quite different than their own. Leaders of integrity never compromise that but leaders who hold to a lesser set of scruples capitalize on it. They play on their audience’s assumptions.
- They know you will automatically grant them the benefit of the doubt and never willingly mislead them (until proven otherwise). That’s how charlatans and scam artists have survived for years.
- They know you will not know enough to ask the right questions that will reveal the true and accurate state of things. So, they get by with some pretty big whoppers.
- They know how to exploit your prejudices and presumptions. In the case mentioned above, the audience was prejudiced against high-salaried ministers and presumed their speaker was not one of them.
Politicians, it seems, are pretty good at playing on assumptions. There is a higher level of skepticism in America these days, but there remains a desire to believe and extol the virtues of those who lead. If leaders are long on charisma and short on character, the problem is all the more critical. (See my column last week on the 19 ways Romney is better than Obama.)
Charismatic leaders are able to charm their audiences. For example, when Obama boasts of the number of jobs created under his administration, he fails to mention the number of jobs lost. It’s like saying you made $20 on that old chair you sold at a yard sale without factoring in you had paid $25 for it just last month. It only appears to be a gain when it is really a loss. Check out this page for a more detailed explanation.
Well, leaders who play on assumptions do just that. We submit that there is a better way and that the American public not only has a right to know, they have a desire to know. The problem is compounded, however, by the short news cycle and the even shorter attention span of television viewers. But, those conditions do not minimize a leader’s responsibility to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
