Executive Leadership: What is it good for?

The New York Times politics blog points out (as other news organizations and pundits have) that we’ll have no one with executive experience in the White House after this election–first time in a long time.  In other words, the winner of the November election won’t have previously served as president, vice president, governor, or mayor.  The three candidates who remain standing have only legislative experience.

The Times post suggests that executive experience may, based on the records of the past few presidents, be overrated.  And that may translate to the C-Suite, as I noted in a recent post.  Corporations have increasingly insisted that the new CEO have already been a CEO.  To follow the theme of the Times post, one might ask why.

Interestingly, the Times mentions “leadership” only once–at the very end of the post when it’s said that America may finally be over its infatuation with “executive leadership.”  Not once, other than in that context, is it said that we should look for a leader to be our president.  All the talk about vice presidents, governors, mayors, and senators–talk, talk, talk about positions. 

Unfortunately, people aren’t elected to those positions because they’re leaders–at least, not often.  They’re elected because they’re good politicians (which means they’ll say whatever they think the voters want them to say), they’re independently wealthy, they’re good fundraisers, or they’re all three.

CEO’s are named CEO’s because they’ve been CEO’s, they have connections, they can navigate the world of corporate politics, or they fall into all three categories.  They may not be able to lead the company out of a paper bag.  But if the Times blog post is an indicator, leadership is an afterthought.

In a followup post to the one about (in part) comparisons between presidents and CEO’s, I asked who was the last non-politician to be elected president.  John Tovrov answered, I think correctly, that it was Eisenhower.  In my response to that comment, I asked another question:  Who was the last non-politician, non-military-person to be elected president?  No answers yet.

Probably doesn’t matter anyway.  At least, whether he was a leader doesn’t matter.

1. 

   John Phillips says:

   May 6, 2008 at 8:13 am

   Thanks so much for the mention. I have read your blog before but must remember to read it more often.