Is It a Flip-Flop or an Evolution?
As politics creeps deeper into our daily lives, business leaders are becoming more like politicians. That’s why you need to remove the term “flip-flop” from your day-to-day vocabulary.
Just like most Americans, I hate election seasons, and I hate politics. This is not to be confused with “government”, which is different from politics. I love government, in a nerdy, civics, Constitutional sort of way. That’s not politics – politics is the gross, annoying BS that we all have to deal with every two or four years (depending on how much attention you pay to the news). When someone wants our vote, pretty much every rule of human decency goes out the window1. As the witty repartee from The West Wing goes:
“Everybody’s stupid in an election year.”
“No, everybody gets treated stupid in an election year.”
One of the most frustrating parts of the media, political consumers, and anyone who treats politics like a team sport, is the term “flip-flop.” It’s been in our jargon for over a century, with the first mention of the phrase appearing in the New York Times back in 1890 during a race for New York City’s district attorney. We all know what it means: it’s when you change your position on an issue in order to get the votes of an electorate. The problem is when, as a business leader, your mindset shifts into that of a politician.
Politicians certainly flip-flop based on the evolution of their constituents (or the evolution of a group they want to make their constituents). Barack Obama famously opposed gay marriage before changing his mind while in office. Everyone remembers John Kerry’s “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” line during the 2004 campaign. During his 2012 presidential run, Mitt Romney got hit with opposing the Iraq War years after he initially supported it. Bill Clinton was a master at adjusting his stated opinion based on who he was speaking with. Going back even further, Richard Nixon promised to be a staunch foe of communism, but then during his presidency famously went to China and attempted to garner better relations with actual communists. FDR campaigned on fiscal conservatism and balancing the budget, then launched the pricey New Deal after he was elected2.
But despite this historical reality, the term has become so overused that it’s now lost all meaning. Hold onto your hats, because I’m going to drop some knowledge: politicians generally aren’t that smart. If you don’t believe me, watch Veep, the show that D.C. insiders say is the most accurate depiction of life in our nation’s capital. Most politicians are just a front person whose views are molded by those that work for them and those that garner influence with them. And in an age where politicians are judged not on their actual ideas and actions, but in short, often-out-of-context video snippets, we’ve created a major issue: we’ve seemingly discouraged anyone from ever learning more about their policy positions or opinions.
Think about it as a business owner. When someone has given you an opinion, and then later changed it, have you ever jumped up and yelled, “Oh my God, Christine, you’re a flip-flopper!” before parading them around the office, shaming them, then calling CNN3? Of course not. If you’re a good leader, you’ve asked Christine why she had a change of heart, discussed whether or not the new opinion is reasonable, and perhaps you changed your opinion as well. In this scenario, what would you say you did? I would say you evolved your opinion. You learned something new, you took it into account, you acknowledged your previously-mistaken position, and moved forward. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the term “flip-flop” used in a business setting.
Even in our personal lives, this is rarely a thing. The divorce rate is just under 50 percent. But when a friend or family member informs us they are getting a divorce, our response is never, “But you said in that ceremony that you were committed forever! Which one is it?? You flip-flopper!” We acknowledge that things change, situations are complex, and sometimes we need to simply wrap our heads around an environment or a mindset that may be different than it was even a few months prior.
In today’s world, politics seems to overtake the rest of our lives. It forces itself into our brains, whether we want it to or not. It often affects how we choose to run our businesses. And with many people taking sides on every topic in our national conversations, more and more business leaders have begun acting similarly to political leaders. This is incredibly dangerous, especially when it comes to opinions and decision-making. If you let political jargon enter your business vocabulary, you’ll end up alienated and wondering where success has gone.
So many business leaders refuse to acknowledge new information if it doesn’t jive with their existing opinion. They see it as weakness to change their minds, even if the situation legitimately calls for it. If we often accept healthy mental evolution in our personal lives, why are so many business leaders hesitant to do so within their companies? Why do so many refuse to evolve?
For one, changing our opinions requires us to acknowledge that our previous opinion was incorrect. I’ve written previously about the importance of humility as a leader, and the power that admitting a mistake can bestow upon you with your colleagues and staff. But politicians are supposed to be perfect and all-knowing, right? That never made sense to me. Thomas Edison once said, “I’ve never made a mistake. I’ve only learned from experience.” More recently, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, after losing in the 2022 Super Bowl, said “You either win or you learn,” which he did just two years later.4
I wanted to dive deeper into this, because I felt it deserved more than just a surface-level discussion and there is actually a large amount of psychological research on this topic.
In a 2017 article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers found that most people believe that moral stances both should and do endure over time. While the change of a moral stance resulted in a diminished perception of the leader regardless of the situation, they found strong evidence that “perceptions of hypocrisy…depend on the direction of leaders’ change relative to the audiences’ views.” Meaning if a politician changes their moral stance on a sensitive issue like gay marriage, they will take a PR hit regardless of which way they evolved. But they will take less of a hit if their new opinion matches that of the majority of the electorate. The research also suggested that people “were generally more inclined to doubt the later view and stick to the initial one when the initial stance was morally based.”
The problem with this (and other) research is that almost all of it is done using hypothetical leaders, not actual leaders. And all of us know that our perceptions are not molded in a vacuum; it depends heavily upon the person we are dealing with, our prior history with them, and so on.
Let’s take one of the most highly-lauded leaders in our country’s history as an example. Abraham Lincoln, when he first took office, was actually not an abolitionist. He not only was a staunch believer in state rights (AKA slavery), but actually opined that former Black slaves would be better off if they were returned to Africa. Just a few years later, he emancipated all of the slaves in the Union, worked to integrate them into society, and showed immense love and respect for leaders of the Black community like Frederick Douglass. But no one calls Lincoln a flip-flopper for this change of heart – instead we almost deify him because he was the president who finally did the right thing, even if it was later than history would have liked.
Research shows that leaders who take moral stances in general are more effective and have improved perception from those around them. Changing that moral stance creates a cognitive dissonance that a follower will have to face. At the end of the day, the decision of “evolution” versus “flip-flop” is usually partisan. If you agree with the change that a leader made, it’s an evolution. If you disagree with the change that a leader made, it’s a flip-flop.
But more importantly, how you’ve acted over the previous days, weeks, months, and years have an even larger impact on how people view you. Let’s take an obvious example that could reasonably happen to anyone’s business in a given year. If you tell your staff, “I know we said we would give everyone 5% raises this year, but we decided never mind,” as you pull away in your new Ferrari, you’re going to have a much different reaction than if you say, “I know we said raises would be 5%, but with the current state of the economy and the uncertainty, we need to hold off temporarily and revisit it in a few months, where hopefully we are in the position to do so.” In either scenario, the staff will be incredibly disappointed, but in the former, they will likely also have ire toward you personally and consider it a mark on your character.
Ultimately, the decision of whether something is an evolution or a flip-flop lies with the person on the other end, their perception of your intent, and the groundwork you laid previously. If you have a history of treating your employees properly, caring about them, and doing everything you reasonably can for their benefit, they are more likely to understand a change of heart, even if it is to their detriment. Conversely, if people are naturally distrustful of you because of your prior actions or behavior, they are also more likely to disrespect your change of heart.
How do we avoid people thinking less of us for changing our opinions? Well, there’s a balance we need to strike as leaders between adjusting the course of action when a situation calls for it, and simply changing your mind on a regular basis. You certainly need to help people understand why you’ve had a change of heart in the first place. What caused your opinion to evolve? “I just had a bad feeling” isn’t going to cut it. Honesty and openness avoids the perception of flip-flopping, especially if the decision is a complete 180 from what everyone was previously doing. You need to make sure everyone knows that the ultimate goal is still the same, along with the reasoning as to why this new method will help everyone get there more efficiently. You need to explain why the change is for the greater good – not just your own benefit. And if the idea for changing course came from someone else, be absolutely certain you give credit where credit is due. If people catch that your “epiphany” is actually someone else’s doing, you’ll lose all credibility pretty quickly.
An Inc. article I read recently sums this up better than I ever could. “The ability to change your mind is an essential quality of leadership,” writes Samuel Bacharach. “Done well, the change of course looks like a moment of courage. You went to the precipice and had the strength to say, ‘Let’s turn back.’ Done badly, the change of course looks like pure opportunism or lack of conviction, and your leadership credibility is left twisting in the wind.”
And that goes for both sides. Don’t give me any of your high and mighty “but my party doesn’t do that”. They do.
This was much easier to get away with in the pre-social media days, when you could say something without it being recorded for posterity.
Note to self: this could be a fun idea for the next company meeting.
GO BIRDS!