Being the President's Representative

Lessons from President Grant's Administration

Word count: 1,585; eight minutes to read.

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If you become an appointee you may never be in the same room with the president, meet or speak to him, or have him give you any personal guidance on your role.

But by virtue of your presidential appointment, you are his representative: his eyes, ears, and long-arm in the executive branch.

This is because the president appointed you to serve in his administration and help him accomplish his campaign promises.

And unless you’re a direct report to the president you answer to higher level appointees in a chain of command that goes all the way to the Oval Office.

Being the president’s representative means many things, the most important of which is representing him well to the federal bureaucracy and the American people.

Rule number one of being an appointee is to do no harm to the president or his administration.

Everything you do will reflect back on the president.

Even if it shouldn’t, the media and the president’s enemies will use whatever they can to tarnish the image of the president and his administration in order to obstruct enactment of the the president’s governing agenda.

So make sure you represent the president well.

To better understand what that means, let’s go back 150 years to President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration.

Below paid subscribers will find a history lesson on President Grant’s administration and how appointee misbehavior caused multiple problems for the president, impeded its ability to govern, and caused historians (until recently) to view it as one of the worst in American history