It’s the new McCain: Titty jokes and Bush smirks

August 7, 2008 · Filed Under Feminism, Internet Media, Politics · Comment

Cross-posted from the Huffington Post
From Politico:

“…at a biker rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, John McCain appears to have volunteered his wife for a topless beauty pageant:
McCain felt so comfortable at the event that he even volunteered his wife for the rally’s traditional beauty pageant, an infamously debauched event that’s been known to feature topless women.
“I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers. “I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”
As a reader emails, “Miss Buffalo Chip has ‘been known to feature topless women’ in the same way that Guns and Ammo magazine has been known to feature firearms.” Indeed, an ESPN.com columnist describes it as “occasionally bottomless.”

I’ve written before about McCain’s risque line-towing, but I’m wondering if new campaign advisor Steve Schmidt (who helped foster the “I’d rather have a beer with Bush” phenomenon in 2004 and made John Kerry French) has been taking McCain out to Hooters in Virginia Beach as part of message training.

Between the belligerent yodeling –”We have to drill here and drill now“–and offering up his wife for a cash prize I’m wondering if this is McCain’s attempt to channel the elusive white male voter he so needs to win?

Presidential Leadership Qualities and Why They Matter

June 20, 2008 · Filed Under Internet Media, Politics, Psychology · Comment

I just wrote about this in Huffington Post. I study leadership- and it’s a skill as well as an inherent quality. But what are the leadership qualities a president needs to possess? Are they similar to those a CEO needs? A military leader’s suite of skills? A parent’s, bringing along unruly toddlers?

“Imagine if you were interviewing John McCain and Barack Obama for a CEO post. You might ask:

Tell us about a high performing team that you’ve built. What made it high-performing?

Can you give us an example of how you have overcome resistance to bring about a needed change?

Please share some examples of your ability and willingness to be decisive. Can you tell us about a time when a lack of decisiveness got you into trouble?

These are questions recently drafted for Barack Obama and John McCain by a room full of leaders from many walks of life. While we would consider such questions crucial insight to gain from a potential senior executive, to my knowledge we’ve never asked them of our presidential candidates. Here are some more leadership questions for our potential chief executives:

What are the attributes and competencies you value most in yourself that will serve you well in the White House?
The internet and technology have flattened the political playing field, allowing for more participation and collective decision making. How will you create a more participatory democracy and give people the opportunity to influence decision making?

The president’s role requires decisiveness. Please share some examples of your ability and willingness to be decisive. Can you tell us about a time when a lack of decisiveness got you into trouble. In retrospect, what would you have done differently?

Tell us about a time when your judgment was tested in crisis. What do you want us to appreciate about your judgment?

And so, a group of eminent leaders from many domains, from popular leadership authors such as Ken Blanchard and Patrick Lencioni, to social entrepreneurs to military leaders and clergy gathered at Harvard to develop a list of core questions about presidential leadership.

Leadership is not a soft skill. It directly impacts the bottom line in business, and I hope good leadership will lift our country’s bottom line. Research from the consulting firm Hay Group shows 35% of the difference in employee engagement and discretionary effort is directly a result of the work environment leaders create. How would that translate into Congress’ ability to get things done? Plus, the climate a leader creates accounts for up to 25 percent of the variance in an organization’s performance - and this is the bottom line: productivity, growth, profit.

But what does presidential leadership mean? What, indeed does leadership mean? It’s an overused word, aligned more with airport paperbacks than the true test of one who can help us find our way in the dark. When I spoke with many of the day’s participants, their answers varied, but they came back to the same core qualities: a leader must serve as well as lead. A leader must listen, learn, and be willing to fail. A leader can’t go it alone. Sounds trite. But imagine if our current Chief Executive had developed such attributes. Would you ever hire a CEO without knowing how he makes decisions? What if George W. Bush had said to the American people when asked, “well, I prefer to make unilateral decisions based on the advice of a small, inner circle of advisors and I never, ever listen to people outside that group.” Next candidate, please.

For more, click here for the Center for Public Leadership

Tags: Center for Public Leadership, leadership skills, McCain, Obama