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Donald Trump's leadership style can bring short-term wins but long-term risks.His approach to leadership and negotiations is something of a throwback, experts told BI.Some corporate leaders will likely try to adopt a more hard-nosed approach with workers.If you live in Canada or Mexico or you're a government worker, you might consider it the art of the raw deal.President Donald Trump's approach to leadership and negotiation more pugilistic than pluralistic has allowed for what he sees as quick wins in trade spats with America's closest neighbors, looming cuts in the federal workforce under Elon Musk's lead, and the rollback of back diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.Only weeks into his second term, the allure of the president's at-times-brash style will likely embolden some corporate leaders fed up with return-to-office fights, discussions about DEI, and flagging worker engagement to adopt a brass-knuckles approach of their own, leadership experts told Business Insider.Yet, they said, shifting into Trump mode could come at a cost."Donald Trump's brand harkens back to an older time in America," Erik Helzer, a core faculty member of the Center for Innovative Leadership at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, told BI.He added that the president's leadership style points to "an older understanding of how to lead."One problem with following in his footsteps: leaders' shoes may not be big enough."A small number may be successful at imitating it, but the vast majority of people don't have the kind of power that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have," Brian Ott, a distinguished professor of communication at Missouri State University, said.Adopting the Trump playbookElizabeth Lotardo, author of the book "Leading Yourself," told BI that leaders tempted to replicate the president's muscular stance should consider, among other things, the timelines they face."The trap is to view the time horizon as similar. Donald Trump is playing a four-year game. CEOs, the good ones anyway, are hopefully looking at a longer-term horizon," she said.Helzer said Trump's approach will likely trickle down into corporate America, though he added that some CEOs will buck that trend.High-profile companies, including JPMorgan and Apple, have defended the work of their companies around DEI, for example.Lotardo said the president's move to force the roughly half of federal workers who can do their jobs remotely to go to an office five days a week could ultimately be a Pyrrhic victory. It could achieve a stated goal of thinning government payrolls but could also drain expertise and make it harder for the government to innovate if top talent flees, she said.A 'master negotiator'Helzer said Trump's stance on trade appeared designed to be provocative and follow the negotiation principle of "make the first offer." Doing so means subsequent offers are anchored to the first, he said."From the standpoint of trying to gain the upper hand in negotiation, there may be some strategy associated with that," Helzer said.That's how the White House sees it."President Trump, a master negotiator, is strategically leveraging his skills to fulfill the promises that earned him a resounding mandate from the American people," Harrison Fields, principal deputy press secretary, said in a statement to BI.Indeed, the future president wrote in his best-known book, "The Art of the Deal," that dealmaking is his art."Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks," Trump also posted in 2014.Rulership vs leadershipOtt at Missouri State University told BI that Trump often demonstrates "rulership" rather than leadership."Leadership requires, by definition, followership," which involves people voluntarily doing things without coercion, Ott said. "Real leadership is leading and building consensus.""He has no interest in consensus-building," he said, referring to Trump."He will get people to acquiesce, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're partnering," Helzer, from Johns Hopkins, said, referring to Trump's recent trade moves.Ott said that even though the president and supporters like Musk, newly installed as a "special government employee," appear to be getting what they want, leaders who try to copy the Trump playbook might find they fall short.Throwback leadershipMaria DeLorenzis Reyes, an executive leadership coach who said she has worked with more than 1,600 companies, told BI that Trump's approach to trade with Canada and Mexico, for example, might seem to some observers to be one of strength, though she doesn't see it that way."It models this leadership style that's completely opposite to what's needed," DeLorenzis Reyes said.Trump's methodology is a throwback to a command-and-control style of leadership that was more popular three or four decades ago, she said. Yet that practice ultimately isn't as effective as inspiring people behind an idea, DeLorenzis Reyes said. Using fear as a cudgel can reduce quality work, collaboration, and innovation, she said."Leadership that marginalizes or disrespects members of teams hinders an organization's ability to actually operate and be productive," DeLorenzis Reyes said.In her experience, she said, some corporate leaders appeared to talk a good game about concepts they might view as squishy, like empathy and connecting with workers. In some cases, that extended to corporate DEI programs that mushroomed after the 2020 killing of George Floyd and even flexibility in how workers get their jobs done after the pandemic.Now, DeLorenzis Reyes said, Trump's tone is giving some permission to consider walking away from things they perhaps felt forced into in recent years.A reversion to Mad Men-era leadership might work now that it's harder for many desk workers to find a job than just a few years ago. In the longer term, when the pendulum of power swings back toward workers, harder-line leaders could get pinched, she said, when it comes to attracting skilled workers.In the meantime, for some CEOs, reverting to an old-school leadership style and less touchy-feely management techniques is a return to their comfort zones."They never really bought into it," DeLorenzis Reyes said of more recent ways of working. "They just wanted to get back to the way things were."
