important perception
Many people say that “perception is reality”. I have often heard that it is most important for elected people to appear to be effective.
The obvious problem with this, of course, is that councillors make choices everyday in how to spend their time. Given the choice of working on something with long-term and dramatic impacts or appearing in public, someone who is more concerned about their reputation than actually achieving meaningful results would abandon the lower profile or non-public meeting in order to be seen as effective. It’s an interesting contradiction.
This does little to build teamwork among councillors as the more important tasks end up being completed by the remaining councillors, but those who abandoned the effort actually end up looking good in the public eye. Voters reward self-promoters.
I personally hope that politicians would choose to focus on making improvements to the community over building their public image.
It’s disappointing, but the reality is that voters tend to see only a flashes of the work of an elected person. And perception is reality, so what they see in that fleeting glimpse is what they have to base their judgment upon.
So, for political survival and success, I suppose it is more important to be seen as effective than it is to be effective. I’m just not sure it supports effective governance.