What leadership — particularly political leadership — is not is managerial competence, the ability to analyze a problem and manage people and processes in order to solve it. Starting a highly profitable private-equity firm and rescuing the Salt Lake City Olympics are significant achievements, but they are not necessarily evidence of great leadership. These were successes in which the priorities and parameters were essentially set by others, in environments in which Romney could exercise a considerable degree of top-down control.
Indeed, when he tried to bring his CEO skill-set to governing Massachusetts, Romney quickly discovered the difference between the things he could accomplish on his own authority and those that required changing the political environment or working with legislators or interest groups that were not inclined to take direction. It was largely out of frustration with the latter that he decided, only two years into his first term, to turn his focus from governing the state to running for president. And by the time he left office, his approval rating among Bay State voters had slipped below 40 percent and has been falling ever since.
Which brings us to the even bigger problem of Romney’s stunning lack of authenticity.
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