Testing Their Leadership: Obama vs. Palin

Crises exist to test who the real leaders are. During the present crisis, as people lose confidence and anxiety grows, two leaders stand out, in the media at least: President Obama and his most vocal antagonist on the right, Sarah Palin. This might seem like a radically unequal contest. A sitting president versus a woman who served for half a term governing a state with a population smaller than any major American city? But leadership has always been considered mysterious, and one never knows.

To clear up the mystery, I began teaching CEOs and other top corporate officers in a business school course, "The Soul of Leadership." It was a daunting challenge for me and also for them: "Soul" isn't a word frequently heard in the boardroom. But voices on all sides cry out for the kind of leadership that does two things: first, fulfill the needs of the group, which can be as small as a family or as big as a nation. Second, bring meaning and values back into everyday life. Corporate leadership has a reputation for being divorced from both goals. It wasn't hard to find forward-looking people who wanted a change, even before Wall Street greed and excess began to paint a picture blacker than anyone was prepared for.

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