Who'd Be the Better Boss: McCain or Obama?

Imagine if you were interviewing John McCain and Barack Obama for a CEO post. You might ask:

Tell us about a high performing team that you've built. What made it high-performing?

Can you give us an example of how you have overcome resistance to bring about a needed change?

Please share some examples of your ability and willingness to be decisive. Can you tell us about a time when a lack of decisiveness got you into trouble?

These are questions recently drafted for Barack Obama and John McCain by a room full of leaders from many walks of life. While we would consider such questions crucial insight to gain from a potential senior executive, to my knowledge we've never asked them of our presidential candidates. Here are some more leadership questions for our potential chief executives:

What are the attributes and competencies you value most in yourself that will serve you well in the White House?

The internet and technology have flattened the political playing field, allowing for more participation and collective decision making. How will you create a more participatory democracy and give people the opportunity to influence decision making?

The president's role requires decisiveness. Please share some examples of your ability and willingness to be decisive. Can you tell us about a time when a lack of decisiveness got you into trouble. In retrospect, what would you have done differently?

Tell us about a time when your judgment was tested in crisis. What do you want us to appreciate about your judgment?

Candidates go through a funny sort of a job interview -- more a protracted media war than a focused grilling session -- but it's past time for John McCain and Barack Obama to tell us what kind of leaders they would be. After all, we need to know: what kind of decision maker would Barack Obama be? If John McCain were CEO of a troubled company (or country, ahem), would he be able to right the ship? We know their stances on Iraq, their religious affiliations, and their favorite TV shows (McCain: "24", Obama: Sportscenter (??)), but not how they would lead a team.

And so, a group of eminent leaders from many domains, from popular leadership authors such as Ken Blanchard and Patrick Lencioni, to social entrepreneurs to military leaders and clergy gathered at Harvard to develop a list of core questions about presidential leadership.

Leadership is not a soft skill. It directly impacts the bottom line in business, and I hope good leadership will lift our country's bottom line. Research from the consulting firm Hay Group shows 35% of the difference in employee engagement and discretionary effort is directly a result of the work environment leaders create. How would that translate into Congress' ability to get things done? Plus, the climate a leader creates accounts for up to 25 percent of the variance in an organization's performance - and this is the bottom line: productivity, growth, profit.

But what does presidential leadership mean? What, indeed does leadership mean? It's an overused word, aligned more with airport paperbacks than the true test of one who can help us find our way in the dark. When I spoke with many of the day's participants, their answers varied, but they came back to the same core qualities: a leader must serve as well as lead. A leader must listen, learn, and be willing to fail. A leader can't go it alone. Sounds trite. But imagine if our current Chief Executive had developed such attributes. Would you ever hire a CEO without knowing how he makes decisions? What if George W. Bush had said to the American people when asked, "well, I prefer to make unilateral decisions based on the advice of a small, inner circle of advisors and I never, ever listen to people outside that group." Next candidate, please.

In a recent Op-ed in the Boston Globe, David Gergen and Andy Zelleke, Directors of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School, which co-sponsored the event, wrote:

"While we may have trouble defining it, leadership is an intangible that most of us intuitively believe matters -- in any organization, large or small, and certainly in the White House. Recognizing this, candidates invariably tout their own exemplary leadership. But voters are typically left with little more than candidates' self-serving, bumper sticker-caliber assertions: "strong leadership," "proven leadership," "new leadership," etc.

Considering the stakes of this election, shouldn't part of the process of choosing the next president be a "job interview" of sorts, designed to shed light on the candidates' leadership capacity? Voters deserve a better understanding of who the candidates really are; their aptitude for building teams and coalitions; their judgment and decision-making style; and the special competencies they bring to getting difficult things done."

Perhaps counter-intuitively, leadership is more "We the people" and less "Hail to the Chief." I'll never forget what Joe Klein said when asked about a key quality a presidential leader should possess: the ability to listen.

If you have your own questions for the candidates or would like to get involved, please visit: howyoulead.org
For video of leaders on presidential leadership click here

Comments

[booksnmore4you]

I'd at most hire McCain as an occasional consultant. Very, very occasional.

[DianeH]

Seems to me that the best test, rather than just having them answer questions, is to look at how they've run their campaigns. Comparing the two campaigns, the answer is very clear. Obama has inspired millions not only to contribute but to work for him, given the volunteers the lattitude they need while keeping them on message, put together a campaign team that works well together with no infighting or power grabs, and has demonstrated fiscal responsibility throughout the campaign. In response to major issues, they have been addressed as needed. Similarly, he has made adjustments in the campaign as necessary.

By way of contrast, McCain's campaign has been plagued by ever changing messages not only on small things but on policy, constant issues with staff that resulted in firings, an inability to motivate the Republican base much less bring new people into the process and was on the verge of bankruptcy during the primaries. Would you want this as a model for how he'd run the country? Seems pretty obvious to me.

[spaceman3838]

you say inspire i say fool

[closetodemfection]

Is it inappropriate to pine for Hillary on this thread? Probably.

However, it's a scientific fact that women make the best bosses. It has something to do with the way women handle stress:

When it comes to the best managerial skills, women may have an advantage over men, a new study finds.

Researchers at the University of California found that women are more apt to discuss their problems and solicit help from friends and family in times of duress instead of suffering in silence or becoming aggressive, the New York Post reported.

Talking out problems allows women to develop stronger communication skills, which in turn makes them better managers of people than men, say researchers, who analyzed 200 studies of stress behavior.

The study suggests that differences in women's hormonal makeup cause them to "tend and befriend" during times of stress instead of responding with the "fight or flight" response more typical to men, the Post reported.

Ah, well, no point in dwelling on the "what ifs." But, personally, I'd much rather work for Clinton than either Obama or McCain.

[LJeanne]

Yes these are qualities generally attributed to female leadership and the results of compiled research data. But we are talking about Hillary Clinton. Taken as an individual instead of a mere representative of her gender she has a few leadership problems:
There are numerous reported incidents over the years similar to the one David Brooks referred to in his opinion piece "The Cooper Concerns"

She recklessly threatened to "Obliterate Iran"

She ran a campaign organization notorious for high drama, in-fighting, and being generally dysfunctional.

She mismanaged campaign funds and made disastrous decisions that left her deeply in debt " both personally and her campaign coffers (how could we trust her with our economy now in dire straits)

She continued her campaign long past any reasonable shred of fantasy to win the nomination. Long past the rational time to concede graciously and use her considerable influence to help her gender, her party, her country. In this area the press was actually gender-biased in her favor. The media would have cremated a male candidate who did the same thing.

She has a big honking husband problem " a potentially incalculable PR disaster-waiting-to-happen.

So we must look at individuals rather than generalities. What actually matters is effectiveness demonstrated by objectively measurable results.

[ladyv]

Agreed. It's not that women make better managers. It's that the leadership style most women display is better than the leadership style most men display. Hillary's leadership style is atypical, for a female. Well, at least the leadership style she's cultivated. That may be why she so often seemed to be floundering for how to "be." She may have intentionally sublimated her natural style for so long that she lost her instincts. Obama, on the other hand, has the kind of collaborative style typically more common with successful female managers.

[Atcha]

A difficult campaign is a good laboratory to observe the candidates modus operandi, I'd say Clinton and Obama have been put to the test and answered the standard leadership questions during the primaries, and one of them failed obviously. McCain's indecisiveness would have him eliminated by now if they hadn't been a shortage of valid candidates on his side of the selection

[lafrance]

After 30 years of Republican blowhards and their obsession with all things military, what a president is has been greatly distorted itself.
While he may be commander and Chief of the armed forces, what a president is is more statesman than general. And yet the republicans and the media seem to think it's all about beer, bowling, and who can act like a tough guy more.
Little respect is given to intelligence, judiciousness, or statesmanship.
Because of the past 30 years a Rambo is more prized then a Lincoln.

[jollyelle]

What an excellent video!!

http://www.howyoulead.org/

[InjunTrouble]

It does not matter what kind of boss Obama will be.

I would not hire a republican as a dog catcher. I just can not imagine people too stupid to understand the concept of habeas corpus or universal healthcare or believe in invading and occupying a country which is not a threat to us.

[Liberoservative]

Judging by how he has organized and run his campaign I would have to hire Barack Obama....

[Liberal2]

You too earn a duh. Bush's campaign was praised for how well it was run. They didn't let anyone look hard enough at his military record, his business record, his executive record as Gov of Texas, to actually realize he wasn't qualified..

How has Obama legislated...versus promised (change), hypothesized (against the invasion)...what has he delievered????

Methinks you don't know how to hire people. The cosmetics of a job application isn't evidence of qualification.