Wanted: A President Who Can Lead During a Time of 'Daunting' Challenges

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Wanted: A President Who Can Lead During a Time of 'Daunting' Challenges
Published: October 01, 2008 in Knowledge@Wharton

This is the third in a series of articles running up to the November election that consider the qualifications, and various economic and fiscal proposals, of the two candidates for president: Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain.


The next president has a big to-do list: Lead a nation that is at war in two countries, eliminate or make a big dent in the federal budget deficit, avert the collapse of the financial system and manage the tsunami of entitlement obligations owed to retiring baby boomers.
Wharton professor Mike Useem discusses the qualities of effective presidential leadership

David Gergen -- political commentator, advisor to four presidents and current director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government -- told a Wharton audience this summer that "the challenges facing the next president will be the most daunting facing any president of our lifetime. There have been immense problems building up for a long time and crying out for solutions, and time is not on our side." Since then, with the collapse of several financial institutions that provide the underpinnings of the global economy, the challenges have become even greater.

"The job of the person who walks into that office on January 21, 2009, will be as hard as any job any person has ever had," says Wharton management professor Michael Useem, who directs the school's Center for Leadership and Change Management. The difficulty of the task will require a president with extraordinary managerial and cognitive abilities, he and other Wharton faculty suggest.

So, how does a voter recognize those qualities? Faculty at Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania have many ideas about which leadership traits will be generally most important -- but they also acknowledge that in some cases, these qualities can vary in particular circumstances. Winston Churchill, for example, had a checkered political career in peace time but proved enormously successful as a wartime leader.

"It's not easy to say what you most need, given that you need a number of things," suggests Sidney Winter, a Wharton professor emeritus of management whose career included stints as chief economist of the U.S. General Accounting Office during the first Bush Administration and member of the Council of Economic Advisors during the Kennedy Administration. In fact, Winter says, it's usually not clear until afterwards which traits were most important.

However, one quality that is high on most professors' lists is the ability to persuade. Unlike the CEO of a large business, the president has surprisingly limited leverage. As Katherine Klein, a professor of management, puts it: "You don't employ the Congress, so you can't fire them."

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http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2065