World Socionics: March 2022

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 1978) is a Ukrainian comedian, actor, film producer, and the current President of Ukraine. Zelenskyy began his career in entertainment doing comedy skits, eventually moving on to starring in movies, as well as funding movies and shows himself. In 2015, Zelenskyy began starring in a comedy/satire TV show called Servant of the People in which he played a school teacher who is suddenly and unexpectedly elevated to the Presidency of Ukraine after his rant against widespread government corruption in Ukraine went viral. In 2018, Zelenskyy ran for President under his newly formed political party named after the TV show he starred in, ‘Servant of the People’, as a political outsider (as expected of someone who spent their life in entertainment instead of politics) on a populist, anti-corruption platform which frequently referenced the TV show and, according to some, seemed to blur the lines between fiction and reality. Another of Zelenskyy’s campaign tactics was to intentionally draw comparisons between himself and fellow actor-turned-President Ronald Reagan (EIE). He would even quote Ronald Reagan's famous "Government is no the solution to the problem, government is the problem" line in his inauguration speech. Despite portraying himself as a man of the people, Zelenskyy has been criticized for his strong connection to Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. Despite these and other criticisms I will cover later, Zelenskyy won the Presidential election with 73% of the vote against the incumbent President Petro Poroshenko. Zelenskyy’s Presidency has seemingly gone from one crisis to another, each more dangerous than the last. The first of which was when US President Donald Trump (SLE) tried to force Zelenskyy to investigate Hunter Biden, son of at the time Democratic Presidential candidate and current President Joe Biden (EIE) by implying he would cut off American aid to Ukraine which the country relies on. The second major crisis was the COVID-19 pandemic. The third, the most notable, and the most recent crisis of Zelenskyy’s Presidency is of course the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskyy’s status as the leader of Ukraine in this crisis and his bravery in staying in the capitol city Kyiv, even as Russia is attacking the city, has in the past few days (as of writing this article) elevated him to international acclaim.

The one thing that stands out about Zelenskyy above all else is his charisma. Blessed with a magnetic personality, Zelenskyy chose entertainment as his initial career choice despite graduating with a law degree. He has been a charming host and a skilled actor, and his skill as a communicator is what swept him to the Presidency in 2019. The writer of a DW News article on Zelenskyy declares confidently that Zelenskyy’s speeches during Russia’s invasion will go down in history, calling him an outstanding communicator while contrasting his skilled use of rhetoric with the flailing rhetoric of Russian President Vladimir Putin (LSI). It’s impossible to find any article or video covering Zelenskyy that does not focus mostly on his charisma.

Zelenskyy himself is well aware of the importance that charisma and an appealing image plays in politics. In a 2019 article covering Zelenskyy in relation to Donald Trump’s impeachment, he is described as having a disarming ability to adopt whatever persona suits the occasion. When asked how his career in entertainment prepared him for politics, Zelensky states “What the viewer loves in an actor, this feeling of humanity—of course I use it. And that’s very easy to do, because I remain myself… I look at things like a producer. I would often watch a scene on the monitor, and the director and I would yell, ‘Stop, no more, this is unwatchable! No one will believe this.’”

Zelenskyy’s charisma has been on full display during the most recent crisis. In addition to staying in Kyiv, meeting with soldiers and putting out statements to keep morale up, Zelenskyy has given speeches filled with emotional appeals to both the West for aid and addressed to Russians imploring them to put a stop to the invasion, including a speech spoken in Russian (Zelenskyy’s native language) naming specific streets, parks, bars, etc., in the Donetsk region, building an emotional connection with people there and emphasizing that it is Ukrainian territory, in an attempt to convince the Russian people of the injustice of the invasion.

What’s clear about Zelenskyy is that he is not only very concerned with appealing to others, he is very good at it as well. With Zelenskyy’s unbridled charisma, his perception of how things appear to others, and his rhetorical skill, E1 is clear.

In addition to basic emotional appeal, Zelenskyy shows a strong understanding of how symbolic actions influence perception, as seen in his most immediate actions after becoming President. Among Zelenskyy’s actions was the decision to change the traditional greeting that guards used for the President from the more standard and grandiose greeting to a simple "good morning," and to reduce the size of the Presidential motorcade, both among his many actions intended to send the clear message that Ukraine was entering a new era of governance by a good and upstanding President who is not interested in the trappings of power.

Zelenskyy’s campaign also had a very strong focus on presenting an inspiring vision of a future Ukraine, without the corruption that plagued the country since its independence. Presenting corruption as the root of all problems in Ukraine, his stated goals of rooting out corruption and ending the war in the Donbass region were often described as being overly ambitious and unreasonable, considering Zelenskyy promised he would only run for one term.

In addition, a rather minor point, but still worth noting, is that Zelenskyy himself appears to have an inclination toward viewing things by what they represent, rather than at face value. For example, saying to a journalist in reference to the gaudy President’s Office after his inauguration “These walls are filled with the symbolism of the past thirty years. They were the site of what brought our country to the condition it’s in. You want to wash all this off yourself.” In addition, in interview clips, Zelenskyy discusses events in terms of both the symbolic effect they have and the long-term effects of past events. All of this, his understanding of how to affect emotions with symbolic change and his overly ambitious vision, is consistent with T2 supporting E1.

Zelenskyy clearly values toughness and the will to make change. For example, saying of the Ukrainian oligarchs “You have two billion dollars? O.K. One billion goes to paving roads. That’s how you have to talk to them.”, asserting the necessity of being harsh against oligarchs. We can also see this in his decision to stay in Kyiv during the attacks, responding to American offers of evacuation "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelenskyy also clearly has a desire to act to change his country. He has projected confidence while staying on the ground in Kyiv during Russian attacks on the city. It is likely from this that Zelenskyy values F. His recent bravery in Kyiv during the Russian attacks would even seem to be indicative of F ego, or at the very least strong F. However, there are quite a few problems with F ego. Noticeably, despite his tough rhetoric and some early executive actions, Zelenskyy has had serious difficulty pushing his agendas through. Quite a lot of his attempted bills have been stalled in the parliament. While this could very easily be explained by the fact that Ukraine’s executive has much less authority than many other executives, it is still strange for the nominal leader of a party which controls a majority of parliament (240 out of 450), with an additional 80 seats belonging to members of allied parties. This could also easily be explained by the unclear ideological values of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party. Even so, Zelenskyy has only recently begun to take bold action, such as running for President. Prior to that, he primarily criticized and satirized Ukrainian politics from the side-lines as an entertainer. F does not appear to be a natural strength, instead, it is something Zelenskyy has worked to develop, best suiting F6. Further evidence of combined T2 and F6 would be the frequent criticism that Zelenskyy’s campaign promises were often overly ambitious and excessively visionary, lacking an understanding of how much he would actually be capable of accomplishing, which is the reason that Zelenskyy’s popularity was at an all time low prior to its spike as people unified behind him in response to Russia’s invasion.

In addition, Zelenskyy spent the early parts of his life involved in creative work, including comedy routines, acting, writing and filming and producing movies and TV shows. Zelenskyy spent his earlier period of life taking part in many different projects, and only lately has he started decisively committing to a single course and seeking power, a life trajectory fully consistent with someone relying on unvalued I8 for most of their life until transitioning to pursuing valued F6. The creativity on display in Zelenskyy’s Presidential campaign, ignoring traditional media and focusing on social media, creating a connection between the real Zelenskyy and the fictional President that Zelenskyy played on TV, etc. provides further evidence of I8.

Combined with Zelenskyy’s desire to effect change and his valuing of F is a desire to do so on an ideological and structural basis. Most of his comedy centered on criticisms of Ukrainian politics, particularly the corruption and oligarchy that has always plagued Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union. This suggests that Zelenskyy has always to some extent been motivated by a desire to see structural change, (L). Rather than directing his comedy and political career toward specific individuals or specific moral condemnations (R), they have been directed toward general impersonal problems in the way Ukrainian society has been structured since 1991.This suggests that Zelenskyy values L along with F, i.e. Beta Quadra. However, despite valuing L, Zelenskyy has been very frequently criticized for not really having any clear ideology. His speeches, while uplifting, are typically light on specific policy ideas, consisting almost purely of emotional rhetoric. Zelenskyy’s lack of a clear ideology or specific policy positions has been the biggest criticism he has received in his short political career. Zelenskyy’s party, the Servant of the People party, is itself very ideologically incoherent. At one point, Zelenskyy’s representative in Parliament declared Libertarianism as the party’s ideology, but later another leader of the party declared that the ideology would no longer be libertarian and that, to make necessary compromises, the party would become a mix between liberal and socialist views, a very rapid and seemingly random shift in ideology, and an already unbelievable shift in ideology for any political party, made even more jarring by the fact that the party has only existed for a little more than four years. It seems that for both the party Zelenskyy created and Zelenskyy himself, alignment with the West and the EU, and anti-corruption are the only clear and consistent policies (and even these are quite vague), with everything else up in the air. Combining this incoherence which can only be L5 or L4 with the fact that Zelenskyy still seems to value L, and L5 is most likely.

In addition to this, Zelenskyy has been quite dismissive of competence as a necessary quality for a leader, on several occasions stating that he does not need to be a good manager, just that he needs to be a good person. Zelensky himself even admits that he is not a particularly competent person. This all indicates that Zelensky does not value P and, by his own self-assessment, is quite weak at P aspects.

Often, rather than citing ideological consistency or competence as reasons for electing someone to government, Zelenskyy will talk about the need for having good selfless people in government, showing a clear awareness of R. However, Zelenskyy does not seem to put much of a focus on R for the sake of R. Two examples come to mind; first, in Zelenskyy's inauguration speech, he requests that lawmakers stop putting up pictures of the current President in their office, and instead put up pictures of their children. The second example is another of Zelenskyy's speeches, spoken in Russian the night that Russia's invasion started, in which he named specific individuals that he is good friends with living in the separatist-controlled regions in Donetsk as well as specific places that hold sentimental value to him. In the first example, this request takes place in the context of Zelenskyy imploring lawmakers to think about future generations when making their decisions rather than short-term selfish gain, a T focus using R as a tool rather than a point of focus itself, all channeled through through an attempt at emotional impact (E). The second example was also R being used as a tool in service of E during a time of desperation. While both of these examples show an awareness of R from Zelenskyy and confident use as well, they both show R only being used as extrinsically, in service of E1, and there does not seem to be any other instances of R usage by Zelenskyy in the sources I looked through, not even as a background element. Lastly, as I said before, Zelenskyy's political career has been on the basis of challenging oligarchs and pursuing structural change, an L focus, rather than an R focus. This is all consistent with R7.