A Disquieting Fourth
By
Leonard Zwelling
It’s July 4th as I write. The holiday has me focused in an uncomfortable way on leadership and the nature of the workplace. In reality, much of what troubles me does not affect me any longer since I am retired and do not go to work or even work from home in a real job. Yet, my children still work and the world in which they work differs markedly from the one I left not that long ago and that change is not for the better.
Since it is a special national holiday this year, I start with the country’s mood. It is so different than the one fifty years ago. In the 30 or so years prior to 1976, we had won World War II, elected the youngest man ever to the White House, and walked on the moon. We also entered a disastrous conflict in southeast Asia, survived intense internal strife on the civil rights front, mourned three world shattering assassinations, and suffered through what was then the biggest scandal to ever hit the Oval Office, the Watergate break-in and its aftermath, the resignation of Richard Nixon. But in 1976, we were on the upswing. The mood in Washington, D.C, and nationally was positive. The celebration that year felt genuine.
Fifty years later we look back on a series of dreadful men in the White House, unceasing conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere, and the election of the biggest crook to ever sit behind the Resolute Desk, Donald Trump. No man can make a billion dollars in a year being President without being both a self-dealing criminal and an egomaniac. But it is actually worse than that because no one seems to care.
I read that along with the American flags everywhere in Washington are large pictures of a scowling Trump. He wants to build an arch between the Lincoln memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. He is putting his name on everything he can, even the money. He is Big Brother for the crypto age. In a single gesture, his terrible choice to bomb Iran, he made every American poorer and embarrassed us throughout the world. He can no longer distinguish between himself and the country. To him, he is the country and this is always dangerous in business, academics, or politics. When the leader is convinced that he is the organization and the organization cannot exist without him, that organization ceases to serve its constituents whether shareholders, patients, or the American people.
I fear this is becoming more common, too. Mark Zuckerberg thinks he is Meta. The last three presidents of MD Anderson believed that they were the cancer center. Donald Trump, as I said, believes that he is the United States.
Soon enough, everyone who falls into this trap learns that he has made a mistake and the organization can go on without him. As a former leader of a once important office at MD Anderson, I learned very quickly that the cancer center’s research operations did not need me at all. Like all of us who serve in a leadership role, I did my job until I was no longer needed and then I was gone. In my case, so was my office. It has never been reconstituted since I resigned my role in clinical research oversight in 2004. There is no Office of Research Administration in Anderson any longer and yet research goes on. No one is irreplaceable.
Finishing on a high note, this essay in The New York Times by Zeynep Tufekci (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/opinion/ai-agents-steal-jobs-employment.html) makes a wonderful case that AI will not replace everyone working today. By its very nature, AI responds to questions with a probable answer depending upon its programming. People use common sense, nuance, and subtlety when queried. I’ll take people every time and most other people will as well.
So, on this Fourth, I am very concerned about the nature of leadership on all fronts in the country. Many leaders are simply not up to the task due to arrogance, poor advice from those around them, and downright stupidity. The leaders of the United States, Israel, and Russia are all guilty of hubris and the belief that they are the state. They will all be proven wrong soon enough.
The more I work with AI, the more I am convinced that it is a powerful and valuable tool, but it will not replace humans especially in jobs requiring person-to-person interaction, which is most jobs.
That’s my view of the state of the union on this, our 250th birthday. It is far different than the place I inhabited 1976. Then again, so am I.
