From the Kirya to the Knesset: Why General Staff Orders Don't Always Work in Politics
What the psychology of leadership says about generals who move from the top of the IDF to the cabinet table, and why success in one arena is no guarantee of success in another.
In Israel, the path of chiefs of staff and major generals straight from the top of the IDF to the cabinet table feels almost natural. We tend to assume that if someone could run complex systems and lead soldiers under fire, they carry a "leadership gene" that will let them lead the country as well. But when we examine this transition through the lens of leadership psychology, reality shows that unprecedented success in one arena does not guarantee success in another.
The Illusion of the "Leader for All Seasons"
For years, public perception and even early research relied on variations of the "Great Man Theory." This theory, which took shape in the 19th century, held that leadership is an innate trait reserved for a gifted few. On this view, great historical leaders were born with a fixed set of traits that made them effective and successful, regardless of the circumstances in which they lived or acted. The idea was very simple: if you have a leader's DNA, you will run a tech company, an infantry company or a government with the same ease.
However, reality on the ground and well-known models such as Fiedler's Contingency Model paint an entirely different picture. This theory holds that there is no single best management style; a leader's success depends on how well their leadership style fits the situation on the ground. In other words, a leader's personality and effectiveness are deeply shaped and influenced by the context and environment in which they operate. There is no single "operating system" that fits every situation.
To map these personality operating systems, psychology often turns to the "Big Five" model. It is one of the central and best-known models in the study of human personality, classifying our character along a few broad, general dimensions with the aim of predicting behavior across a range of situations. Yet leadership researchers now understand that such broad, general models do not always capture the nuances and subtleties needed to understand distinct work environments in depth, such as management and command.
Orders Versus Compromises: The Natural Selection of Leaders
When a general enters politics, they are emigrating to a world with the opposite rules of the game. Organizational psychology explains this well through Benjamin Schneider's ASA (Attraction-Selection-Attrition) model. The model explains that organizations acquire their character by attracting certain people, choosing to accept those who fit their culture, and causing those who do not fit to drop out. In this way, every work environment becomes a kind of magnet that attracts, selects and rewards people with a specific personality profile.
The military arena
Military culture rests on hierarchy, obedience, discipline, and command and control. In such an environment, the system attracts and promotes leaders whose behavior is marked by strict adherence to order, compliance with rules and a determined drive toward the goal. Military leaders need to be authoritative, decisive and mission-oriented to function effectively.
The political arena
This is a horizontal, flexible environment with many competing interests. Instead of issuing orders, a political leader needs the ability to mediate and negotiate. It calls for entirely different personality patterns, ones that allow open-mindedness, a willingness to compromise, the ability to build coalitions and to bridge between different groups in society.
Why Do Generals Struggle in Israel? When the Context Changes, Leadership Gets Stuck
When we look at how hard it is for senior officers to adapt to the corridors of the Knesset, one of the most fascinating theories in organizational psychology offers a precise explanation and sheds light on the context-dependent nature of a leader's personality. Trait Activation Theory explains that our character traits are like apps on a smartphone: they sit quietly in the background and come into play only when the external environment provides the right cue to switch them on. In other words, the context we are in determines which traits are activated and which stay off.
The military is an environment that presses hard on the buttons of order, discipline and rapid decisiveness. A leader who thrives in the military is one in whom the military environment successfully activates the traits needed to master chaos and lead complex missions under pressure.
The political and civilian arena, however, provides an entirely different set of cues. It does not reward handing down orders; instead it presses on the buttons of mediation, mental flexibility and interpersonal sensitivity aimed at connecting opposing interest groups. When a general takes off the uniform and enters politics, the external cues change all at once. The new environment simply no longer presses the buttons of authority and order that made them so successful in the past.
If that leader lacks the ability or the habit to activate traits of compromise and empathy when the situation calls for it, they will find themselves trying to use force and rigidity in an environment that demands softness and consensus-building. The frustration that follows, for both the leader and the public, stems precisely from this gap. What happens here is an attempt to run excellent military software on a political operating system that requires entirely different code.
The managerial experience senior officers acquire is invaluable, but it is no insurance policy for success in public life. A leader who wants to cross the lines must update their toolbox, learn to speak the language of consensus-building instead of orders, and remember that what won yesterday's campaign will not necessarily build tomorrow's coalition.