US Voters Should Look for Future Presidents with Potential

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Harvard Business Review – US Voters Should Look for Future Presidents with Potential

As candidates start to emerge for the 2016 US presidential election, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a Senior Adviser to Egon Zehnder is worried. How will voters value certain leadership qualities – like experience – over traits like motivation, competence, and potential when they go to the voting booth, he asks in Harvard Business Review blog entry? According to Fernández-Aráoz, voters tend to see a leader’s position on key issues as a top priority, followed by their leadership ability, while personal qualities rank third. “However, this is exactly the reverse order that we should be following when predicting leadership greatness,” warns the author. “Great leaders are truly great not because of what they say, or even what they do, but because of who they are,” he adds. Fernández-Aráoz urges voters to use potential as the key criterion for evaluating US presidential hopefuls, followed by competence, and then experience and background.

Full story: Claudio Fernández-Aráoz: Are We Evaluating U.S. Presidential Hopefuls All Wrong? a blog posting for the Harvard Business Review (1 July 2015).