I’m currently taking a course called Leadership in Democratic Organizations, and for one assignment I had to conduct an interview with a leader in/of my community. Since I am interested in getting into education reform/policy (the government side of things), I chose to interview Ms. Loretta Sanchez, my representative in the US House of Representatives (CA-47). Ms. Sanchez and I don’t see eye-to-eye on most issues, but my questions had little to do with politics; they were about her personal brand of leadership, her leadership philosophy. So I was super excited when I got word that she did indeed have time to meet with me.

When I say super excited, I mean super super excited. Pumped. Floored. Stoked. Psyched. Whatever the new cool, hip way of saying completely and entirely beside myself with anticipation, excitement, and delight is, that’s what I was. I was going to actually get to interview my Congresswoman! I was pumped. Way way way pumped.

Imagine then my utter disappointment when I arrived at Ms. Sanchez’s office and was treated with complete disdain, incivility, and even hostility. Yes. Really.

I was ushered into Ms. Sanchez’s office by her aide, but Ms. Sanchez was rifling around her desk. She didn’t greet me, she didn’t smile at me—she didn’t even look up. A few minutes passed, and I wondered if I was supposed to introduce myself first (where’s my copy of Debrett’s Guide to Meeting Congresspeople?). I took a step forward, and the aide intervened, told me to take a seat.

More time of being ignored passed. Finally, Ms. Sanchez came over. I extended my hand; we shook. I introduced myself briefly, thanked her for taking the time to speak with me, and told her I counted this as a real privilege. She stared at me blankly: no response, no words, no smile, nothing. She just sat down.

Before I run through a few specifics of the interview, let me say this:

Throughout the entire session, she was cold and unresponsive. She stared at me unblinkingly, and I was consistently made to feel like a waste of her time and an inconvenience. At no time did she encourage me, nod in understanding, or seem remotely interested in my questions. The atmosphere was hostile, heavy, and intimidating. Her manner was wholly dismissive, ungracious, and bordering on impolite. Had I been a journalist or someone in an antagonistic position, I might have expected that. However, as a mere graduate student from her alma mater, I did not feel that I warranted that degree (or any degree) of hostility. As a constituent, I feel that I warranted quite a bit more civility—at the least.

Overall, I was left with the impression of a woman without a leadership philosophy, a woman who is just sitting at the right desk. She spoke with little or no conviction about leadership. Her most inspired statements were the ones when she spoke about herself and her accomplishments (“I’m the only one doing the right thing,” she said—several times. The only one. The only one in Congress, the only one in Orange County) or against her dissenters (she freely denigrated those who did not agree with her, without remorse or caution). It may be that Ms. Sanchez has done a fair job voting and passing laws on the Hill—I do not know—but I have to say, I am ashamed to have such a person representing me.

On to the nitty-gritty:

One of my questions had to do with diversity and how to bring people into a shared vision. Ms. Sanchez ignored that aspect of the question and focused on how she deals with people who openly disagree with her views. Many Congresspeople, she told me, just avoid talking to the dissenters, but she believes that everyone has a right to speak. “Everyone gets a mic. Everyone gets their 3 minutes,” she said. And then she shrugged.

She went on, and while I have no exact quotes, the meaning I took away was this: you let people talk because once they have been given a chance to speak, they no longer have a right to complain. She never mentioned her desire to hear what people were saying, to see or understand their viewpoint, or to be remotely conciliatory toward them. She seemed rather like a demigod who, having thrown a favor down (the 3 minutes at the mic), is utterly indifferent to dissent.

Furthermore, in speaking about her dissenters, her tone—and even her words at several times—was mocking, dismissive, and just plain rude. I was incensed by some of the things she said. I was appalled that she was even saying them. Firstly, whether or not her constituents all support her, they are still the people she is supposed to represent—not people she is supposed to ridicule, generalize, and scorn. Secondly, she needs to hire a new PR person. Someone should have told her that, whatever her personal views on her constituents are, she can’t display that sort of vitriol publicly. #PRfail #yourefired

At another point, I asked how a leader in her position navigates between personal conscience and the will of her constituents. Surely some balance is required, I suggested. I have always been interested in the fine line that our representatives must walk, the line between representing the people and following their own conscience. Ms. Sanchez stared at me like I was an idiot, like I was from another planet—and an idiot on that planet. “If all my constituents decided that they wanted to line up all the 15-18 year-olds in front of a firing squad and shoot them, I would vote against it,” she informed me flatly. “I have a strong moral compass.”

I wanted to ask exactly how often that situation had arisen, but decorum prevailed, and I just nodded politely. (Clearly, she has a really high view of her constituents and the issues we might try and raise. If you’re in CA-47, you might want to think about that.)

Toward the end of the time, I asked what leadership quality she would most like to see in today’s young leaders. She thought for quite a while, hemmed and hawed (she did a lot of hemming and hawing throughout, actually, in a manner faintly reminiscent of a stereotypical “valley girl”). When she answered at last, she spoke of the need for selflessness, for service above self. You cannot have a leader without followers, and people don’t want to be led by selfish people. Also, a leader doesn’t always have to be a leader, she told me. She proceeded to say that, although she is a leader in politics, she is not a leader in church. “I don’t want to be the guy who hands out the bread things,” she told me flatly.

Would that be the “bread things” that other Catholics call “Christ’s own body”? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. #stupiddecorum

Funny as the quote is, though, it’s very telling about her view of leadership. Clearly she views leadership as a hat to be worn, something tied exclusively to formal position. In my class, we talk a lot about leading from any chair, about being a leader despite your official position, leading by example in whatever we do, etc. The current trend in leadership studies is toward empowering people to empower others, leading in the small things as well as the big things.

Her thoughts on selflessness were somewhat in line with the kind of leadership I am studying, and those thoughts might have carried more weight if she hadn’t answered my last question the way she did. I told her we were compiling a list of role models and leaders, and I asked who she admired and sought to emulate, who had shaped her into the leader she is.

“Is there anyone you think should go on the list?” I asked.

“Me,” she said.

I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t.