Fast Company - Election ‘08 - The Best Man for the Job is a Woman
Election ‘08–The Best Man For The Job Is A Woman
Monday, April 28, 2008
I love flip-flopping as I look at the Presidential campaign through the lens of emotional intelligence. Maybe I should run for office.
Here goes my current iteration.
Obama is a charmer, not a fighter. Clinton is a fighter, not a charmer. Clinton is a bulldog and it’s beginning to “feel” like Obama is slinging a lot of bull.
Given how uphill a battle it seems to get anything accomplished, I can see the advantage of a bulldog over someone with charm, but possibly not much else.
Truth be told, the reason President Bush may have beaten Gore and Kerry, is that compared to both, he was the bulldog to their complainer and whiner personae. Ironically, President Bush’s bulldog personality may even be preferable to either Obama’s (evangelical style) or Clinton’s (grating style). The problem with Bush was his flawed vision (or perhaps his gamble that didn’t pay off) and then even more flawed execution of that vision. If Bush had a better vision and was more effective in implementing it, he in fact has the better personality for the job.
Darn, this personality stuff is such a distraction.
I think what Americans need, want and ache for is something that none of the candidates have and if they had, most Americans would fight.
What we need is a candidate with a noble vision so powerful and compelling that we will put aside our more pressing personal needs to throw ourselves behind it.
Fighting for individual freedom was the vision that gave birth to this country, freedom from slavery caused the Civil War, making the world safe for democracy led to WW I, overthrowing evil led to WW II.
None of the candidates seems to have a transformational vision that can be that rising tide that lifts all Americans. Instead, they seem hopelessly locked in transactional myopia where the focus seems more about getting elected than on taking America to a place of world deserved prominence and eminence and above the perceived entitlement it seems to have with the rest of the world.
(c) 2008 Mark Goulston
July 8th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Mark: Your website is great. I really liked your last blog which led me to look the website over. I saw this one blog and wanted to comment:
It was the summer of 1995, and Retired General Colin Powell had just spoken to 5,000 New York Life agents at Radio City Music Hall. I was fortunate to be one of them. I was so stoked, I was willing to go out and walk precincts to get him elected President. I thought at the time that he fit your criteria: What we need is a candidate with a noble vision so powerful and compelling that we will put aside our more pressing personal needs to throw ourselves behind it. Too bad his wife wouldn’t let him run.
Very Best Regards, Jim
July 12th, 2008 at 11:34 am
The essence of this blog was that what we hunger for in a leader is someone who:
a. engenders trust
b. commands respect
c. inspires confidence
Bush’s forcefulness vs. Gore and vs. Kerry inspired confidence. The reason he is now so reviled is that we feel snookered into believing in someone who we had confidence in but who now turns out to be someone we can neither trust or respect.
Forcefulness is not the same as pushiness. Unfortunately forcefulness in a woman is almost always perceived as pushiness (think Clinton).
McCain commands respect and engenders trust, but his narrow experience, age (a.k.a. set in his ways + can’t teach an old dog new tricks) mitigates against having much confidence in him.
Obama has the potential to do all three, but he is so unproven (but so was J.F.K.) that we don’t yet have confidence in him.
What we need is someone who is formidable without needing to be pushy. To my thinking, Colin Powell best embodies those three traits. He might have to live down his association with Bush, but I think that is fading into the background.
November 24th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Hi I like your post “Fast Company - Election ‘08 - The Best Man for the Job is a Woman” so well that I like to ask you whether I should translate into German and linking back. Greetings Engel