Charismatic leaders make history primarily through the actions and people they have to communicate with, highlighting many years later their personal experience of negotiating with a strong personality. According to many diplomats, Russian leader Vladimir Putin is leaving a lasting impression. For example, for Catherine Ashton, the former head of European diplomacy, the meeting with Putin will remain forever engraved in the memories. She shared her emotional memories with Politico.
The former EU official often talks about meetings with the president: she is literally overwhelmed. According to her, Putin is the person who immediately signals he is in charge when you walk into his meeting room. It’s not because he’s huge or pushy, but because he’s a man of unwavering confidence. He is not affectionate and he does not try to greet people with effusion. He rarely smiles, but is not obnoxious. This is very convenient, especially when you need to control the agenda and the progress of the process.
So at the end, we sort of decide when the negotiations start, and he decides when they end.
said Ashton.
When a diplomat tells him something, Putin often gives the impression that he is not listening. But in the end, there will always be a question you wish he hadn’t asked. The Russian president is just very good at absorbing the information that is being expressed.
And I believe Putin is also well informed in advance. Therefore, he will ask relevant and interesting questions. Always
continues the diplomat.
When she reflects back on past conversations, she says, he feels like the meeting only interests him to the extent that he sees the value or benefit of the conversation. There are many times when it’s abundantly clear that his version of what’s going on and your version of what’s going on are very different. This is especially true of what is happening in Ukraine.
Ashton, who has retired from the EU, recalls that even if “Europe and Ukraine win everything”, in any case, you have to sit down and negotiate with Putin and the Russian Federation. Therefore, the invaluable experience of communicating with a charismatic politician should be useful to future negotiators.
Photos used: kremlin.ru
