Some Useful Advice To Take With You To The Voting Booth

[bobbcat]

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Below are 5 questions the author asks us to consider before selecting our choice for POTUS.

Exerpts:

Is he real? What a crazy question, right? But authenticity really matters when it comes to crisis leadership. A person cannot make hard decisions, hold unpopular positions, or stand tall for what he believes unless he knows who he is and feels comfortable in his own skin. I am talking about self-confidence and conviction. These traits make a leader bold and decisive, which is absolutely critical in times where you must act quickly, often without complete information. Just as important, authenticity makes a leader likable, for lack of a better word. His "realness" comes across in the way he communicates and reaches people on an emotional level. His words move them; his message touches something inside.

Does he see around corners? Every leader has to have a vision and predict the future, of course, but great leaders in tough times must have a special ability to anticipate the radically unexpected. In business, the best leaders in brutally competitive environments have a "sixth sense" for market changes, as well as moves by existing competitors and new entrants. For the next president in our new world, a "sixth sense" is not enough. He needs a seventh sense--paranoia about what lurks in dark corners we cannot even see.

Who's around him? In tough times in particular, a leader needs to surround himself with people who are smarter than he is, and they must have the grit to disagree with him and each other. A great leader has the courage to put together a team of people who sometimes make him look like the dumbest person in the room! I know that sounds counterintuitive. You want your leader to be the smartest person in the room--but if he acts like that, he won't get half the pushback he must get to make the best decisions.

Does he get back on the horse? Every leader makes mistakes, every leader stumbles and falls. The question is, does he learn from his mistakes, regroup and then get going again with renewed speed, conviction and confidence?

The name for this trait is resilience, and it is so important that a leader must have it going in to a job because if he doesn't, a crisis time is too late to learn it. That is why, when I placed people in new leadership situations, I always looked for candidates who had one or two very tough experiences. I particularly liked the people who had had the wind knocked clear out of them, but proved they could run even harder in the next race.

Is he pro-business? Last but not least, the leader of the United States must love business, because a thriving economy is the free world's last, best hope. It has become very fashionable in the past few years to say that business is bad and crooked. The antibusiness fervor even got to the point that CEOs who outsourced production, in order to stay competitive, were labeled "Benedict Arnolds." What nonsense.

Business is great. Successful companies are the engine of a healthy society and nothing short of the foundation of a free and democratic world. While government is a key part of society and vital to all of us, it makes no money of its own. All the necessary things it provides--from the justice system to welfare and hospitals--come from some form of tax revenue paid by companies and their employees. Government is the support for the engine. It is not the engine.

A great leader in this day and age must appreciate the value of business to the world. He cannot beat it down, denigrate its participants, or create an environment where business people must struggle to build opportunity. When business is weak, America is weak.

Bolded above for emphasis, as this is a point that people too often forget. If gov't is ever allowed to undermine business to an unreasonable degree (and that ain't a lot), you can count on crippling the US economy and creating a situation under which no one will come out on top.

[luvmetender]

Does he get back on the horse? Every leader makes mistakes, every leader stumbles and falls. The question is, does he learn from his mistakes, regroup and then get going again with renewed speed, conviction and confidence?


Bush can't even admit a mistake, let alone learn from one!

[trust no one]

Originally Posted by luvmetender

Does he get back on the horse? Every leader makes mistakes, every leader stumbles and falls. The question is, does he learn from his mistakes, regroup and then get going again with renewed speed, conviction and confidence?


Bush can't even admit a mistake, let alone learn from one!

"We are being ruined by the best efforts of people who are doing the wrong thing."
W. Edwards Deming (One of the 14 people, throughout recorded history, who changed the world).

"If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically."
Dale Carnegie, Author of the world's second best selling book, behind "The Bible."

"Best efforts will not substitute for knowledge."
Deming

[bobbcat]

"Best efforts will not substitute for knowledge."
Deming

What does Kerry know?

[luvmetender]

Originally Posted by bobbcat

What does Kerry know?

Come on bobbcat, you can do better than that

[bobbcat]

I'll settle for an answer to my question above. Surely it is not a tall order. Or is it?

[luvmetender]

I don't know what a tall oder is. Is it smelly?

[bobbcat]

LOL! Call it a typo. That's t-y-p-o! You won't smell it unless it's an o-d-o-r. Guess you got eliminated early on in the spelling bee thing.

[luvmetender]

i knew that... just messing with you! But why do you ask that question?

[bobbcat]

Because I really don't know what Kerry knows.

[trust no one]

According to Deming, a Leader is known by a specific capacity of
being compelled
to persuade people to do a specific thing,
for which a practical plan for doing it exists in advance.
for which there is an explainable rationale (theory).

If a assumptive "leader" cannot persuade people to do a specific thing, then he is not a leader. If he has no practical design for doing the thing he proposes then he is not a leader. If he has no interpretable rationale for doing the thing, then he is not a leader.

An assumptive "manager," on the other hand, need not actually do anything. The specific authority of office is sufficient to be considered a manager.

Bush is not a "leader." Consider him more of a "manager" (and not a very good one).

[bobbcat]

My question remains unanswered. What does Kerry know? In what capacity and in what way will he do things better than Bush has done?

[luvmetender]

Originally Posted by bobbcat

My question remains unanswered. What does Kerry know? In what capacity and in what way will he do things better than Bush has done?

Who knows? I want to give Kerry a chance though. Bush scares me.. I have nightmares about another attack. I can't believe you actually feel safe with him at the helm.

[bobbcat]

It is all according to how you look at things. Kerry would allow the UN to play a much larger role in how the US handles its foreign affairs. Now that's scary. Just a modest knowledge about this body, its history, its attitude towards the US is enough to prompt strong skepticism about trusting the UN to have any serious role in the endeavors of our troops.

As for Bush's approach to the war on terrorism, I find little to criticize beyond the poor handling of the aftermath of Hussein's overthrow by the Coalition forces. This is WWIII whether one would rather look at it that way or not. I'd much rather have a leader who realizes this and does not want to dismiss this issue as a mere criminal/police issue, as is the case with Kerry. Besides, who in their right mind wants a politician who displays a pattern of saying virtually anything that he thinks will serve to promote his political interests? This is no time for such a person.

[trust no one]

Originally Posted by bobbcat

It is all according to how you look at things. Kerry would allow the UN to play a much larger role in how the US handles its foreign affairs. Now that's scary. .

Kerry has never said that. However, The Beltway Boys, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity all have prevaricated to get the conclusion you wrote above. They all have presented the UN thing on the air as fact, when in reality, it is what John McLaughlin termed a “wicked extrapolation.” It appears you have succumbed to their illogical verbal equivocation.

Kerry has said a "global test," meaning the onus of fully explaining rationale and purpose (see Deming’ s leader, posted earlier), squarely lies with the position of the President of the United States. This burden has, as far as I can see, been pretty much ignored by the current administration, and most likely will be reinstated quickly in the next administration if Kerry is elected. Otherwise, my prediction is we will have more lying and nefarious blind ambition from the oval office.