The Impossible Job Is Available... Why would anyone want it and can anyone succeed during a crisis?

Imagine that you have just been selected to lead the largest, most powerful organization in the world. You are now on the job the first day and this is what you find:

• You have no real power. The programs sent to you are not yours but those of other key vented interests. You must either agree or disagree what is proposed, you can't change any of the items or veto those parts which are not part of the proposal, but vented interest additions.


• Your staff is enormous, but the leaders are all temporary and the professionals and clerical employees are all vested and you can't remove them without a very difficult and complex process and the final results will not be what you wish, but a compromise.


• All of the key stakeholders have their own vested interests and not focused on the final solution or even the good of the entire organization.


• Budgets are always overrun ( or loss) and there is no discipline to balance the budgets. When there is an overrun the organization just get permission to add to the deficit. When there is a surplus (or profit) the stakeholders all vie for their unequal share.


• You have a limited time horizon, since it is possible that you will be removed in four years, but definitely in eight years, so everything is short term and not long term. Some of your key stakeholders must reapply for their jobs every two years, others have a life time employment.
  

This is a NIGHTMARE for any executive and it is amazing that anyone apply for it. Yet there are long lines of applicants and some spend their entire lives and resources to get the job. Of course it is prestigious if you win and succeed, but success is very temporal and not well defined.This is the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES situation... so you may wonder why it is so difficult to succeed...and most business executives would not apply and if they do, they are likely to fail. The business executive is an autocratic/ prince... they have the power and if they are smart they would not want to be President of the United States.

This is why the whole notion that a Business CEO would be able to any better than the politicians is not realistic.

Unfortunately the current Presidential situation is only workable when the Country is winning and strong, but it is in crisis.... changes are needed. This is why Franklin D. Roosevelt began a autocratic president and not one like the one I just described. He even lasted three plus terms and if lived might have served many more terms.

The United States needs leaders, but any real leader would not apply of the Presidents job...since they would not have the power to lead... so this may be the reason that our Presidents are quite often not leaders, but just those who can manage the system and with a little luck get out of the office being somewhat popular.

Changes are needed... but these will require a re-thinking of our entire mentality and even a change in whether it is really viable to have a democracy...this is really SCARY...

Bill Rothschild, author of RISKTAKER, CARETAKER, SURGEON, UNDERTAKER- the four faces of strategic leadership...available on AMAZON and http://www.strategyleader.com/