Author of this blog does not have any stand on the theme or gist of the article.
Nevertheless there are some interesting points in the article about leadership and management.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303933104579302480571979884
- Job of chief executive of the most powerful operation in the history of the world requires not executive experience
- Presidential campaign is supposed to test also candidate managerial skills but the army of campaign manager, fundraisers and press secretaries running the show make it difficult to assess.
- Leader job is to create a vision and inspire the follower to pursue it. Manager's job is to make the vision tangible.
- Some leaders may be good managers but a sterling manager doesn't necessarily have the charismatic gene.
- Some people may be born leaders , but most master the skill by painful experiences.
- A manager learns that having the right idea or strategy isn't the goal but the obligatory first step in the process
- Getting the plan or deal or product executed properly is the job.
- Even the most brilliant staffers have weaknesses.
- With the 20th century, governors who had experience administering their states increasing took over generally for the better.(William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge)
- The only American president who ever managed a mammoth enterprise before entering a White House wasn't a business executive at all: Dwight D. Eisenhower , who ran the Allied effort in Europe in World War II and masterminded D-Day, the largest and masterminded D-Day, the largest and most complicated Military operation in history. Derided in his Oval Office days as a smiling do-little, IKe is increasingly recognized today as a slyly adroit president.
- Jimmy Carter who was nuclear submarine engineer, didn't have a successful presidency
- John F. Kennedy came up with "Excom" strategy team that brilliantly managed the Cuban Missile Crisis.
There are interesting comments. Best Presidents were those who were ably to carry with them the opposition's leader.
