Mayor Pete was my favorite presidential candidate this cycle… By far.
1 Like
We disagree, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Edit: That sentence just read like something out of the personals.
Why?
Edit: You can answer this however you like, but are there any leadership qualities that stand out to you?
I liked his calm confident personality/demeanor, his background in the military and his generally center left politics. Didn’t seem hell-bent on getting even plus some with republicans… Wasn’t angry… Seemed more logical and rational than driven purely by emotion.
Would you consider him the best leader among the democratic field?
The second part is always going to be true to an extent. We’re always going to “like” leaders who do things the way we want them or at least are aligned to our viewpoints on things.
The first part from a google search can give us a lot of ideas about a list of characteristics of good leaders. We can also think of what we have liked about our favorite leaders; bosses, coaches, pastors, whatever. We did that on a thread a while back.
I don’t think Trump fits hardly any of the characteristics most people want in a leader. I can’t imagine anyone would actually want to work for, be coached, etc by anyone like Trump. Just a article from google that I haven’t even read in full. Isn’t Trump the polar opposite of the vast majority of these?
https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/the-9-traits-that-define-great-leadership.html
A different article with different characteristics. Again I don’t think Trump checks a single box.
I’d pick him to follow over the rest for sure. Biden is old. Klobachar seems like she probably eats toddlers. Bernie is always pissed of and fired up. Warren I liked personally a lot, just didn’t jive with her message.
I like a leader who is cool calm and collected, but CAN get fiery when it’s needed. But that fiery act gets old, so it should be used at key moments and special occasions only. Plus, I like the leader of our country’s military to have actually served in the countrys military.
1 Like
I’m trying to divert the thread from the ground that’s been covered extensively. If the thread is titled “What is Leadership?”, let’s start talking about what leadership looks like.
? I believe I linked two articles discussing the very thing. I linked the articles to Trump because that is what the OP was referring to in asking the question. Do you think the characteristics of the articles are wrong? I mean I’m sure we could quibble with any list. But if you google what makes a good leader the vast majority of articles make the same points.
Essentially most people agree on what good leadership characteristics are it seems. When it comes to politics specifically people will disagree because of the positions leaders take. But the actual characteristics of what make people effective and what people want I think are fairly well known.
I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. It seemed like there was fairly broad consensus that whatever leadership is today, Trump doesn’t exhibit much of it.
I’ll throw him a bone you might not in that overall discussion, but that’s not really worth splitting hairs about here.
I was trying to steer the discussion towards actual leaders and leadership characteristics we can think about in today’s political landscape.
1 Like
I’d say the most basic competency is that you can get things done with the tools and instututions you have. Being a leader isn’t holding a political opinion - anyone can do that - or even being good at communicating it - though that helps. I think the key attribute is being able to get things done. If you can get stuff done it is a signal the other aspects of leadership are present (influence, if not inspiration, respect, etc.).
If stuff is getting done on your watch, people are listening to you. Maybe it’s your charisma, maybe it’s your intelligence, and on and on. But it means (good) action is being taken because of your presence.
1 Like
Gotcha. I may even throw him a bone you wouldn’t. I would say most of the characteristics from the Forbes article are what I would want in a leader.
I also think a lot of our Presidents even in modern times had a lot of good leadership traits. We might not have liked all them the same and our biases may cloud our judgement or agreement.
1 Like
In everyday terms I agree, but I strongly disagree if we’re talking about political leaders.
Do you have a “true north”, or not? What do you stand for? How often does what you stand for change?
Perhaps we’re moving towards a society where our “leaders” don’t hold political opinions. Or offend anyone. Or do anything that anyone with a voice can disapprove of. Wouldn’t it be great if they get a lot of things accomplished within that framework, far from prying eyes that can express any meaningful level of discontent?
Given the radically different nature of policies being proposed across our political spectrum, I’d say we should pay very close attention to the political opinions of whoever we choose as our leaders.
1 Like
Well just say your own thoughts instead of linking someone else’s and expecting us to read it!
Oh I need to clarify. I think leaders should have political opinions, most definitely - what I’m saying is having political opinions isn’t sufficient to make someone a good leader, there has to be something over and above that.
You see this a lot with people who find someone with whom they share almost all the same political opinions, and they’re first instinct is to say “I’d vote for that person for President!”. Well, no, there’s more to it than liking or identifying with their opinions.
1 Like
Then I think we are in agreement, with regards to the importance of policy and being able to articulate the arguments for any given policy.
Apologies I was trying to work at the same time. Still am. Well sorta.
The characteristics in the article are: self managing, acting strategically, effective communicator, being accountable and responsible, setting clear goals, having a vision, managing complexity, promoting teamwork, creating lasting relationships, learning agility.
The other one was: Awareness, decisiveness, empathy, accountability, honesty, focus, inspiration.
I’m sure I could add other stuff but from the first two google hits I linked at it’s a pretty decent start of what I’d want in a leader. I’m sure I might use different word choices or add and subtract here and there.
FWIW if I had a President who was 100% aligned with every policy position I wanted but was an awful human being OR a President who was 50% what I wanted and the opposite of that I would take the 50%.
I simply think the words, actions, and behaviors of a President are very important and that all of that can’t magically be dismissed over “policy.” I didn’t realize how important they were until now as we hadn’t had a President in my lifetime (Reagan-Trump) who differed so much from the others in regards to public behavior.
Not to mention I think the person in my first scenario is going to have a harder time actually passing anything of course in our system.
I understand why you want to keep bringing this back to Trump. He’s still active on the political landscape, after all. Very much so, in fact.
I’m trying to steer the discussion towards leadership, and examples of what this means to you. I hate to get all high school social studies substitute teacher on you, but this is C- work at best:
Those aren’t your thoughts. That’s just crap you copy/pasted.
Now that I think about it, you get a D+.
I know you can explain what a political leader looks like to you, using your own words.