Syria holds a special place in my heart. From 2016-2020, I was involved in various projects related to Syria, trying to do my part in promoting awareness about the conflict to prompt international intervention. I was in disbelief that a leader could somehow get away with murdering his people en masse, and that the international community mostly looked the other way. As a Jew, I was raised with constant education and awareness of the Holocaust. One of the prevailing sadnesses is how many countries turned their backs on the Jewish people, leaving them to be decimated by Hitler’s Nazi regime. The term “Never Again” has rung in my ears since I was a little girl, and I couldn’t fathom how this steady stream of civilian massacres could just be permitted to continue.
I first co-produced a documentary short in the early days of the Syrian revolution. I interviewed people who had risked everything for freedom— activists, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists - who believed in the promise of a better future for their country, even if it meant they might die before they saw that future. That’s how I ended up meeting a Syrian citizen photojournalist, Malek Tarboush , who had been documenting the conflict for news sources like Al Jazeera.
I ended up being brought on to edit his book, which documented the horrors of the regime, as well as the acts of bravery undertaken by ordinary people like the White Helmets. The stories of their courage, resilience, and pain have stayed with me ever since, and the haunting photos of a child’s shoes sticking out of the rubble will never leave me.
You can read Syria, A Revolution here. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/56406004/syria-the-revolution
This connection to Syria shaped my perspective on leadership, resilience, and the complex interplay of courage, change, and timing.
On the last episode of Samanthropolitics, "The Liberation of Syria," I went through Syria’s history and the fall of the Assad regime. My guest was Syrian-born Rasha Elass, an undercover journalist in the country at various points throughout the war. She was the only member of the international media able to access both regime and rebel-controlled territories. (She is now the editor-in-chief of New Lines Magazine )
As I reflect on Rasha’s insights and the broader lessons from the Assad regime’s collapse, the main concept I have been thinking about is the disintegration of fear-based, command and control-leadership structures in favor of inclusive, trust-based models that prioritize hearing people’s voices.
For Full Episode, "The Liberation of Syria," https://www.youtube.com/live/WpyRKKEMt_c?si=MV469m_IXqx90mJP
1. Fear-Based Leadership is Unsustainable
Bashar Al-Assad’s reliance on fear and repression as tools of control offers a stark lesson in the limits of coercive leadership. For 50 years, the Assad family ruled through surveillance, intimidation, and brutality. As I explained during the show, "His face was everywhere, from watches to walls," symbolizing the omnipresence of his control. As Rasha described, "It was really hard to explain just walking around the streets of Damascus and just being tense—you’re always being observed." She added, "Even in their own living rooms, people didn’t talk about anything they thought might get them in trouble."
The tweet above perfectly encapsulates Assad’s watchful eye covering the country – even as he systematically destroyed it. (Brief aside, I have never understood why a leader would destroy his own country – what’s the point of being in charge of something you are annihilating?)
Yet fear alone could not sustain loyalty indefinitely. I vividly remember hearing a Syrian classmate speak about her first experience protesting the regime. She emotionally recounted the sweet liberation and power she felt when she finally used her voice. Once she felt what it was like to not live in fear anymore, she was never going back.
That being said, fear is the oldest leadership trick in the book. It’s a convenient tool for manipulation, targeting people’s most fundamental insecurities and threatening retaliation if they do not obey. That’s why leaders use it. It causes an amygdala hijack, where the rational thinking area of the brain – the prefrontal cortex- shuts down, and reactions are purely emotion-based, devoid of logic. This explains one reason why so many people vote against their own self-interests – they are swept away by emotion.
The new model of leadership we need to move towards, as Stephen Covey emphasizes, shifts away from command-and-control tactics toward a focus on trusting and inspiring.
As Covey says in his book, Trust and Inspire, “People are drawn to environments and cultures where they are trusted and free, where they are inspired by a sense of purpose, meaning, and contribution.”
Photo Credit: Malek Tarboush
This starkly contrasts with Assad's regime, where fear-based leadership and control dominated every facet of governance, creating a suffocating culture that ultimately sowed the seeds of its own downfall.
2. Economic Hardship Undermines Leadership
Photo Credit: Malek Tarboush
Economic collapse played a critical role in the downfall of the Assad regime. Years of war devastated Syria’s economy, leaving the military and civilians alike impoverished and disillusioned. International sanctions prohibited multiple countries from doing business with Syria, which further drove its economy into the ground.
Critical to the fall of any regime is the defection of security forces, as documented by nonviolent action experts Maria Stephen and Erica Chenoweth of USIP.
This was pivotal in the Syrian case.
The maltreatment of soldiers who had committed their lives to keeping Assad in power accelerated their defection. "Soldiers abandoned their posts, not out of defiance, but because they were physically starving, unpaid for months, and emotionally broken," Rasha shared.
Leaders who fail to address economic realities lose the trust of their people, and their regimes eventually falter.
Venezuela, another country that has plummeted into economic crisis and a refugee crisis, also saw a huge shift in loyalty this year. Though the security forces did not defect, a large segment of the population in the poorest areas changed their long-time votes for Maduro and gave their vote to Edmundo Gonzales this year. Why? They had voted for Maduro for years because his administration essentially bribed them, giving them food, TVs, radios, and all sorts of other handouts to win their loyalty. When the money ran out because Maduro had entrenched the country so profoundly into an economic crisis, and the situation of the poorest had only worsened, they had no motivation to vote for him. That’s when he resorted to sticks. (Our Samanthropolitics episode, Crisis in Caracas, dives further into the Venezuela situation. https://www.youtube.com/live/_HpVrAzUbh8?si=druvqERu0bKAXQYR)
This is because fear-based loyalty is derived from a transactional style of leadership, which is based upon external motivations, and a system of rewards and punishments. It eventually collapses under pressure once the external rewards run out, or when people stop fearing the punishments.
Transformational leadership relies on intrinsic motivation and is much more powerful – but it requires a circumspect, inspirational, inclusive and compassionate leader. In addition, trust is not automatically given, it often must be gained, which can take a significant amount of time and patience.
When I was a teaching assistant for Social Psychology at Tufts, I taught my students that intrinsic motivation always wins out over extrinsic motivation. For example, giving your kids money for good grades may work to compel their impeccable study behaviors in the short term, but it is not an effective long-term strategy to ensure their long-term honor roll status. This is because they have to want it for themselves, not because they anticipate an external reward. Their own motivations and desires are much stronger than financial compensation.
. The fear-based leadership model relies on carrots and sticks, containment, and extrinsic motivation.
The trust-based leadership model relies on expansion, empowerment, and inspiring intrinsic motivation.
True leadership is built on trust and mutual respect, not fear or force. The Syrian revolution demonstrated that coercion and surveillance create only the illusion of stability. Rasha elaborated, "I couldn’t even lift my phone to take a picture of a statue in a park without being flanked by state security asking why." This oppressive environment ultimately bred resistance rather than compliance. Leaders must cultivate trust by being credible, reliable, aligned with the needs of their people, and demonstrating service over self-interest. When credibility and reliability erode, people lose trust in their leader. And micromanagement may seem like its working in the short term, but individuals have a psychological need for autonomy – they don’t want to be told what to do. This means that most people will resist control and it will backfire on the controller. Fear and intimidation may work in the short term, but it cannot withstand sustained challenges.
4. Women are Essential to Resilience and Change
The collapse of the Assad regime also highlighted the pivotal role of women in fostering resilience and driving change. Women in Syria organized underground schools, smuggled supplies, and provided medical care in besieged areas. Rasha shared her experience: "When I went into rebel-controlled areas, I saw women holding underground schools for children, taking them into basements during bombings to continue teaching." She added, "They worked as nurses, smuggled food, and helped document what was happening—all without seeking recognition because it was too dangerous." Initiatives like the Syrian Women’s Advisory Board proved that women are indispensable to peacebuilding and governance. I emphasized, "Syrian women are not just victims; they are strategists, leaders, and symbols of resilience." Their contributions offer a model for inclusive leadership that prioritizes community well-being and nonviolence.
5. A Nation’s Identity Must Drive Its Rebirth
As Syria begins drafting a new constitution, the process serves as a crucial leadership lesson for nations emerging from crisis. "Drafting a constitution isn’t just about laws; it’s about articulating who we are as a people," Rasha explained. She highlighted the importance of inclusivity, saying, "Civil society has already been talking to each other for years—those in exile, those inside Syria, and those in rebel-controlled areas. Now is the time to formalize those conversations." This moment presents an opportunity for Syrians to redefine their identity and values. I emphasized that the international community can act as a trusted advisor, but the process must remain Syrian-led. "We cannot impose our will; this must come from the Syrian people," I said. Inclusivity, accountability, and representation will be essential to ensuring lasting peace. "A new constitution is not just a legal document—it’s a chance to rebuild a nation’s soul," Rasha reflected.
One of the most important aspects is to include a wide range of actors in the writing of the constitution, not just the usual suspects. This means ethnic diversity, civil society and the inclusion of women – the latter is the largest group consistently excluded from constitution drafting. Between 1990 and 2015, only one in five drafters of constitutions in fragile states was a woman – despite the evidence that women’s inclusion bears significant positive effects on the implementation of the constitution and the likelihood peace will be sustained. Namely, they are coalition builders – bridging divides across ethnic and political groups and helping to create consensus. They also reach out to citizen groups to gain their input in the constitution drafting AND inform them about how the aspects of the new constitution will affect them. They also advance provisions for equality and inclusion, ensuring that one group does not end up with absolute power.
6. Timing and International Factors Are Critical
The timing of Assad's collapse underscores how external dynamics can play a decisive role in toppling entrenched regimes. The holes once filled by Syria’s main allies provided an opportunity for opposition forces to capitalize on weakened support structures.
Assad’s main allies were no longer interested in expending significant resources – both financial and human - to help him hold onto the country Russia was deeply mired in its conflict in Ukraine, diverting resources, troops, and attention. Iran, which once had an entire defense force inside Syria to organize and train regime militia, the National Defense Force (NDF), was struck several critical blows by the Israeli military. The Israelis first killed Seyed Razi Mousavi, a senior member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who was responsible for Iranian interests in Syria, and then targeted Iran’s embassy in Damascus, where they killed seven Iranian officials, including a senior commander in the IRGC, General Mohammed Zahedi. The Israeli pager operation on Hezbollah, which debilitated the Iranian linked terrorist group, added to the weakening of Iranian influence.
This also provides a lesson in how important allyship is. It is difficult to keep your grip on power in a country with a devastated economy without any friends to help you out.
While courage and unity are critical, they must be supported by a shift in the international balance of power.
7. Toppling a regime takes more than courage
Malek's children celebrating the fall of Assad and freedom for Syria. December 2024.
Courage is essential in standing up to oppression, but the fall of the Assad regime demonstrates that courage alone is insufficient. It takes a sustained, united effort from multiple opposition forces, the defection of key military and police figures, strategic decision-making, and significant international factors to bring down such an entrenched system. It also takes time and persistence.
Syrians across the spectrum—activists, defectors, and civil society—came together at the right time, and persisted for years. Despite how long it took and how much they suffered, Syrians did not give up. They persisted in rebelling for years in many ways, not just by physically fighting back. When I teach movement building, I always emphasize how slow it is. Overturning structures, laws, regimes, and social norms that have been entrenched for years is extremely difficult, and often those fighting against it are targeted.
This final victory was fueled by 13 years of sustained opposition, and the war incurred 600,000 deaths, and the displacement of more than 14 million Syrians. The refugee crisis remains the largest in the world today, reflecting the immense human cost of the conflict. change also requires extraordinary perseverance over time.
The fall of Assad marks the beginning of a new chapter, one shaped by the transformative power of people determined to create a better future.
These leadership lessons—spanning trust, inclusivity, resilience, and the need for sustained efforts—offer insights not just for Syria, but for leaders and nations worldwide.
The trust-based approach, by prioritizing collaboration, mutual respect, and inclusion offers a transformative blueprint for leadership that rejects the oppressive frameworks of the past.
Syria’s struggle is a reminder of the profound cost of fighting for justice and the immense responsibility we have as a global community to support those who dare to stand against oppression.
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