Leadership is a Hygiene Factor
Ronald Reagan was fond of saying, "He governs best who governs least." I am a lifetime liberal but on this point, I largely agree with the former President and conservative icon. Several years ago, on a commercial flight to somewhere, I was sitting next to a talkative retired aeronautical engineer. In the course of his monologue, he noted that he had been Ronald Reagan's boss in World War II. They ran a logistic operation for the Army in the western Pacific (Reagan had bad eyes and had received a deferment from combat assignments). I asked him about Reagan's performance, and he said Reagan was the best natural manager he had ever seen. I then pointed out that, inside the Washington beltway, Reagan was frequently criticized for his "hands off" leadership style, and the engineer snapped, "That's because he knows what he is doing." He then pointed out that everyone agreed that Reagan's transition into the White House had been the smoothest in recorded memory—more so even that of the compulsively organized Navy Nuclear Engineer Jimmy Carter—and this testified to Reagan's skill as a manager.
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