When the Donald brags about being a successful executive, a little context helps. He heads a private company, without any real risk of board intrigue or challenge, and is valued, by independent observers, at $3 billion to $4 billion. We won’t even get into his near bankruptcies.
In contrast, Carly Fiorina headed an $57 billion company that was No. 35 on the Forbes most valued brands list. A company with $109 billion in sales and 302,000 employees. Oh, yes, one that weighed in at No. 19 on the Fortune 500 list.
Want to talk about management insight, then? Especially in a truly competitive world.
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But government doesn’t need to be/should not be headed by a corporate manager or an ex-general for that matter. Those two types of leadership cannot make one a successful president who will actually do something for the vast majority of the American population.
That seems like a strange claim to me. Granted, we don’t want our heads of state to behave as if the country is either an army or a corporation, but surely there are transferable skills?
What do you think is essential in forming a good president?
I’m not sure that the skills these two candidates claim and others besides them who have been in some sort of “management” position are the sort that should be transferred into an elected office. Skills like using laws to toss people out their homes (Trump) or laying off workers to increase profits (Fiorina) are skills we can do without. Candidates who point to their managerial skills have the (wrong) idea that the private sector is the cure for everything.
I’d like to see a candidate from the mainstream who actually believes that a all options are not on the table except one: negotiation.
Valuable insights!
At last, a question that cuts to the core. I’d love to hear others discuss this. Still, I suspect there’s an indefinable quality that marks a good leader — some combination of authenticity, command, humility, compassion, and a host of other virtues.
I think openness to collaboration is critical. The willingness to realise that we can be more together than the sum of our parts, and that even the people I find difficult have something essential to bring.
Indeed!
You may recall Meg Whitman, the current head of HP, (who is on her way towards laying off 84,000 employees) spent $120 million of her own money in an unsuccessful run for governor. My point with both her and these other two is a simple one. In government, you can’t just lay off thousands, or even fire just one employee. Meg claimed her success in Calif. would be in running it like a business, to listen to all options, then have everyone fall in line with her decision.
My obvious question always was, “And the first time a fellow worker, even a subordinate, told you to go jump in the lake, then what would you do???”
Of course this also puts aside the question of why would I put someone in charge of my state who was so careless with such a large amount of money?
For my money, business experience DOES NOT transfer to good government leadership.
Excellent points, well taken.