Is It Possible to Have a Disciplined White House with an Undisciplined President?
Matthew N. Beckmann
Donald Trump recently named Susie Wiles as his incoming White House chief of staff. Wiles proved herself a focused, organized campaign manager, and she intends to bring that manner and method to the White House: “My team and I will not tolerate backbiting, second-guessing inappropriately, or drama.”
No doubt, White House discipline is never easy to achieve, let alone sustain. The combination of issues, people, pace, and pressure naturally attracts chaos, breeds infighting, and courts drama. These same features make being president far more difficult than being a CEO, for instance, while also confounding the White House chief of staff role.
But if a disciplined White House is always an elusive target, it proved especially so under President Trump. Trump’s first term was hallmarked by a “shambolic management style” that encouraged “staff dysfunction,” and early indications are that Trump enters his second term even more “unbridled and emboldened,” if not “unleashed.”
In a White House characterized by deliberative discipline, people recognize they are but one piece of an intricate puzzle and faithfully do their specific part to serve the president.
That raises an interesting question: Is it possible to have a disciplined White House with an undisciplined president? I’ll forgo the suspense: No, it is not. Let me explain.
In broad strokes, it is useful to think about White House discipline as two distinct but interrelated types: pre-decision (deliberative discipline) and post-decision (messaging discipline).
The first form, deliberative discipline, is realized when staff roles are clearly defined, competently filled, and effectively executed. Incoming tasks get routed efficiently, vetted carefully, decided methodically, and implemented faithfully. In a White House characterized by deliberative discipline, people recognize they are but one piece of an intricate puzzle and faithfully do their specific part to serve the president.
Deliberative discipline is easier to imagine than implement for many reasons. When officials sense their input is being misunderstood or undervalued, the temptation is to jettison “standard operating procedure” and wander off task, shield or shade information, leak to outsiders, or exploit backchannels to the president. Such “dysfunction” can be both a hazard and distraction, in no small part because it produces great fodder for reporters’ stories and staffers’ memoirs.
It is far easier to share freely and speak candidly when private conversations remain private . . .
The second style of White House discipline—messaging discipline—speaks to the administration’s capacity to suppress internal disagreements in external communication. After the president makes a decision, the normative expectation is that everyone will come together and sing from the same hymnal—or at least repeat the same talking points. This is crucial because the White House press corps is quick to notice subtle differences in officials’ messages and then drill any and all sources to pry any fissures wide open.
It is important to note that deliberative and messaging disciplines go hand-in-hand. It is far easier to share freely and speak candidly when private conversations remain private; likewise, making the president’s case in public is much easier when staffers feel the internal processes were fair, their arguments were heard, and the president’s decisions were well-considered. Disciplinary breaks in either form, by contrast, tend to spiral from one to the other – and back again.
A disciplined president understands their singular role within the deliberative and messaging systems—and everyone else’s.
This gets to the heart of the matter: the president of the United States. As much as the institutional presidency has settled into a standard organizational model, the operational reality is that the White House’s daily operations necessarily reflect each president. As goes the president, so follows the presidency.
A disciplined president understands their singular role within the deliberative and messaging systems—and everyone else’s. White House discipline thus arises when the president plays their part and demands others play theirs, which they do to gain access and status, influence and importance.
An undisciplined president, by contrast, cannot help but manifest an undisciplined White House. When the president permits (or, worse still, rewards) unplanned meetings, secretive backchannels, and self-serving leaks, each will emerge in spades. For if a president incentivizes “backbiting, second-guessing inappropriately, or drama,” wittingly or not, there is little a chief of staff can do to quash it.
In short, Susie Wiles will soon understand why James Baker III bids every incoming White House chief of staff the same greeting: “Congratulations, you’ve got the worst fucking job in Washington.”
Matthew N. Beckmann is a professor of political science at UC Irvine and the author of The President’s Day: Managing Time in the Oval Office.
