Leadership Con Carne

We all have had the boss we would walk through fire for. This is the man or woman who, by virtue of their leadership abilities, can ask us to perform tasks well outside our comfort zones and skill sets, and yet we strive to achieve them. Not just a check in the box achievement, no, a full on excellent job achievement. Then again, there is the boss who does not inspire us to push ourselves, who does nothing to ensure we will strive for that extra mile. This is the boss who is only in it for the accolades. This guy doesn't care two figs about your circumstances, he only wants the job done. I have found that this second type of boss leaves much to be desired. They are the type of boss who does not respect your family time, does not respect your time off, does not particularly care if you had plans; you will be in to work on Saturday. You will (in my case) get down into a bilge and, you will, scrape, prep, and paint it. What's more, they expect you to be happy for the opportunity to work with them.

Pilfered from a google search, and This site.

While both types of leaders may be effective, I would argue that the leader who has the people on his side has a distinct advantage over the other.

Now, this may seem inconsequential (if you value your job you will end up jumping through hoops anyway), it does bring to light one of many distinctions of leadership. Leaders can be broken down into two general groups: those who are followed due to an imposed directive, and those who are willingly followed. The imposed directive leader has a sense of entitlement. They walk around as if they can do no wrong, that their word is law, that they are infallible. In my experience they are almost always wrong.

Their air of self importance and over inflated sense of self worth is, again in my experience, generally linked to a deflated self confidence. As discussed in class, one of the traits of a good leader is a high level of self confidence. This along with an engorged ego can lead to people who believe they can accomplish anything. A dash of optimism and a sprinkle of charisma and you have a person who can lead a horse to water and make it drink.

As a matter of national security, we often choose a President based on likability. This little story describes how the American people tend to, at least in part, choose their future leader based on whom they would rather share a frosty pint with. Moreover, we tend to elect people who can relate more to the average Joe. This has not always worked out, take Andrew Jackson's presidency as an example. While Old Hickory was seen as a man's man, he was also the main proponent of the trail of tears, as well as the 'Bank War'. All that aside, the phenomenon of judging our president based on our personal impression of the man, rather than the policies, is a relatively new concept dating back to the Nixon-Kennedy election of 1960.

In the Nixon-Kennedy debate radio listeners called Nixon the clear winner, yet the television viewers saw something completely different. Through the entire debate Nixon seems far less comfortable in his own skin than Kennedy. At one point he breaks out in sweat. These are not qualities we want in the leader of the free world. We want confidence; we want nerves of steel. This was one of a few factors that cost Nixon the Presidency.

For the first time in the history of America people were paying attention to the facial expressions, apparent nervousness and general demeanor of our future President. My favorite part of this past Presidential debate was watching Joe Biden openly disregard what Paul Ryan had to say.

Yet, we still elected the Obama-Biden ticket. Despite the holes in policy, despite the uncertain future they may bring...We elected this dynamic duo.

Why?

Simply put, Americans could not relate to the Romney Ryan ticket. This goes back to the previous argument about who we would rather lift a pint with. Above all we want our President to adequately represent us. We want a person who, at least on the surface, represents the average American.

Interestingly, a search of "is Romney relatable" on the Wall Street Journal's website resulted in zero relevant articles. I will leave you to your own conclusions on that one.