罗姆尼vs.奥巴马：领导力对决

    还记得你以前那位无能的老板吗？他是个大好人，但却缺乏决断，遇事也分不清轻重缓急。或许最糟糕的是他试图让所有人都高兴，结果是差不多所有人都不满意，都感到困惑。还记得管理层忍了多久，最终还是请他走人了事——而这种事又有多伤人？

    当然，这时，你或许开始有些理解为什么上头当初要重用此人，为什么这么长时间以来对他抱有希望。他曾经是销售冠军，是公司多年来最好的销售人员。但最终，人们发现当初成就他辉煌个人业绩的东西最终却却让他成了一个平庸无能的管理者。

    职场上每时每刻都在上演类似的情节。比如，一位出色的工程师晋升至研发管理岗位、一位才华横溢的记者晋升至编辑、一位杰出的科学家晋升为实验室主管，等等等等。一开始是鲜花和掌声。接着，一段时间之后，业务方向开始迷失，价值观混淆，左右碰壁，最终一切乱成一锅粥。

    看，在公司里，有些人确实在现有岗位上表现卓越。但他们就是没法担任领导职责。

    明智的公司都深知这一点。事实上，大多数公司已经从失败中吸取了教训：真正出色的管理者需要独特的技巧，有时甚至是最被看好的候选人也可能根本不具备。

    但是，美国老百姓认清这个现实了吗？

    难说，因为目前关于美国总统竞选风格有很多不同的声音。现任总统奥巴马以其口若悬河的演讲著称，而竞争对手米特•罗姆尼显然并不热衷于抛头露面，每周都难免遭遇尴尬（甚至更糟，说错话）的时候。

    专家们称，奥巴马的确深谙竞选之道。罗姆尼，则不那么擅于此道。

    仿佛这就是全部。

    但这肯定并不是全部。政界和商界一样，擅长其一（比如，借助提词器发表精心撰写的演讲）并不一定就擅长其二（比如，领导自由世界）。

    当前，选民们需要做的是别再关心“有没有政治演讲技巧”，而是要看看竞选结束后，候选人能不能成为一位更出色的总统。别再问“谁在电视上更有魅力？”，而应该问问，“谁有办法能让美国经济重新运转起来？”

    是的，在某种程度上，每个人的回答都是根据他们对从医疗保健到税收、再到能源政策等种种议题的看法。而且这一轮选举中意识形态的对立非常鲜明：奥巴马支持政府集权，近乎欧洲式的社会主义，而罗姆尼则赞成去集权化，尊重各州和个人的权利，并推崇自由市场资本主义。

    Remember that incompetent boss you used to have? He was a good guy and all, but he just couldn't make decisions or prioritize. Perhaps worst of all, he tried to make everyone happy, resulting in almost everyone being angry or confused or both. And remember how long it took management to move him out -- and how aggravating that was?

    Of course, at the time, you sort of understood why the Bigs had promoted the guy in the first place, and why they held out hope for so long. He'd been a superstar salesman. Best the company had seen in ages. But in the end, it turned out that all the things that made him great as an individual performer made him lousy as a people manager.

    It happens all the time at work. A brilliant engineer promoted to run R&D. A gifted reporter elevated to editor. A cutting-edge scientist made head of the lab. First cheers. Then, after a bit, confusion about organizational direction, mixed signals about values, hurt feelings left and right and, eventually, chaos.

    Look, in business, some people can really knock it out of the park in their current jobs. They just can't lead.

    Smart companies get that reality. In fact, most have learned the hard way that actually being a great leader involves unique skills that even the most promising candidate for a leadership job simply may not possess.

    But do the American people get that reality, too?

    You have to wonder. Because there's an awful lot of noise out there right now about campaign styles. President Obama has a reputation built on his soaring oratory, while Mitt Romney, clearly no fan of crowd scenes, can't seem to get through a week without an awkward (or worse, foot-in-mouth) moment.

    The president really knows how to run for office, the pundits note. Romney -- not so much.

    As if it matters.

    It doesn't, of course. Just as in business, in politics, being very good at one job (like delivering well-written speeches from a teleprompter) doesn't necessarily make you very good at the next (like leading the free world).

    What voters need to do right now is stop focusing on stump skills, or lack thereof, and start fixating on which candidate will be the better president once the campaign is long over. They need to stop asking, "Who's more appealing on TV?" and start asking, "Who's got the right stuff to get America working again?"

    Yes, in some part, every person's answer to that question will be driven by the issues -- from healthcare to taxes to energy policy. And in this election, the ideological divide is stark indeed, with Obama supporting government centralization that borders on European-type socialism and Romney in favor of decentralization, state and individual rights and free-market capitalism.