USNews.com: Special Report: America's Best Leaders (10/22/05) is the title of this fascinating article on American leadership. It describes what a recent JFK School survey says on what Americans think about their leaders. The John F. Kennedy School for Government at Harvard companion site features this landmark study, done by Yankelovich, Inc. In a companion US News article, Harvard JFK School's David Gergen writes about leadership, asking "Does Leadership Matter?"
(my readers may remember that I posted on the subject several times recently).
According to the survey, completed earlier this month:
•Americans Are Highly Critical of the State of Leadership in the Country
•Confidence in Specific Leadership Groups Is Mixed –Index Is Highest for
Military, Medical and Educational Leaders; Lowest for the Press, Executive Branch, and Congress. In the middle are Religious and Non profit, Business, and Local or State government leaders.
•Americans Most Often Look for Honesty and Integrity in Their Leaders
•Americans See Themselves as Part of the Leadership Problem for Not
Being Better Informed
•Americans Have Some Optimism about the Future of American Leadership
•Americans Feel the Country Will Be Better Off with More Women in
Leadership Positions
•Americans Have Reservations about Government’s Emergency Response
•Older Americans Are the Most Critical of the Nation’s Leaders
•Americans Often Respond to Leadership Issues along Partisan Lines
America's 22 "Best Leaders" (pictured and profiled in the US News article) were chosen by a 35 member committee of leaders sponsored by Harvard.
Several of these leaders were featured on a C-Span (10/25/05) panel moderated by David Gergen and Ann Richards. As you might have guessed, Fox's Ailes and former Texas Governor Richards did not see eye to eye on several issues. Gergen concluded the lively panel Q & A with comments about the leadership qualities often missing in the disappointing leaders of today. He mentioned the traits of passion, creativity, resilience, humor, and having a moral compass.
The winning leaders on the panel included: Bill Drayton, CEO of Ashoka; Geoffrey Canada, CEO of Harlem Children's Zone; Howard Schults, Chairman of Starbucks; Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO of Fox News channel; and Bill Shore, Founder of Share our Strength.
Other more famous leaders named to the "Best" list included: Shirley Franklin, Mayor of Atlanta; Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles; Oprah Winfrey, Entertainment mogul; Rick Warren, Author, pastor and motivator; Bill & Melinda Gates, Founders, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Founders of Google; Colin Powell, Soldier and statesman; Francis Collins & Craig Venter, Human Genome mappers; Meg Whitman, President & CEO of eBay; Donna Shalala, President, University of Miami; Thomas L. Friedman, columnist; Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple; Paul Farmer and Jim Yong Kim, Founders of Partners in Health; David Petraeus, Lt. General of the U.S. Army; Brian Lamb, President and CEO of C-Span; and Coldoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State.
2 comments:
I think the issue of how America values its leaders, and more importantly, what it considers important issues where leaders are necessary is a very important topic to address.
It seems to me that a good number of these leaders are in the non-profit social sector and not in business or politics no?
I too think leadership is very crucial, particularly these days. As followers, we must be able to recognize excellence, else we are all sheep. And, as you point out, it should be us who decide what are the important issues that require leadership.
You are absolutely right, several of the people featured are in the helping sector. Of course that is my bias, since I am a social worker. The business leaders are at a minimum very altruistic and non traditional.
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