Presidential Candidate Qualities As far as being a United States President is very responsible, the U.S. President should be an honest person with strong leadership skills above all else. These two qualities seem to be the most important ones, as the U.S. President represents our nation and serves as an exemplary model for all Americans. In addition to leadership and honesty there are other characteristics which are important for presidential candidates to appear to possess in order to get elected. So, the candidate for U.S. presidency should be an effective leader. Effective leadership, if applied to the presidential candidate, should include strong organizational skills, effective communication style, cognitive style, a vision of public policy, strong political skill, and emotional intelligence (Sheehan & Sheehan, Spring 2006 ).
These qualities are very important, because the U.S. presidency is the apex of power, and, at the same time, is at the mercy of special interest groups, various political pressures, and social events. In such a way, it is very important for the U.S. President to be a strong political and social figure in order to cope with all hardships and to manage the country effectively. The effective presidential candidate also needs to be able making effective strategic decisions and to chart new courses of action on the international and domestic policies. All these qualities are the component parts of the effective leadership style. In such a way, the effective presidential candidate should be above all, the effective leader.
The Essay on Is Strong Leadership Good
Is strong leadership good? Leadership is a term that gets tossed around promiscuously almost every time a politician, business magnate or football manager speaks on what is required to get results. So what is leadership? Leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal. Strong leadership is when you are able to motivate this group of people well and be ...
According to Fred Greenstein (2000), there are six personal qualities and traits of character shaping presidential performance, namely, organizational capacity, cognitive style, vision of public policy, emotional intelligence, political skill, and proficiency as an effective public communicator (Sheehan & Sheehan, Spring 2006 ).
In addition, presidential candidate should be a well-balanced personality with a variety of abilities, talents and skills. Although it seems obvious that no presidential candidate will perform equally well in all areas that were identified by Greenstein, still, the U.S. President has to do all his best to master his skills. It seems that these real and apparent qualities are generally the same. Indeed, effective communication skills are crucial to the presidential success. The U.S.
President needs to communicate his policies, ideas, and visions, and to be able to convince his nations and other world country in his ideas. President should also be a good orator, able to present his arguments passionately and reasonably. He also needs to be an engaging and an articulate public speaker, able to inspire his people, because the presidential style of speaking is very important for the future success of his presidency. Obviously, the effective presidential candidate needs to be an organized person and to work with the other people effectively. He also needs to have a clear vision of public policy, because it is very important for the countrys success. For example, Woodrow Wilson’s aim was to keep the country out of World War I, but he failed to fulfill his promise when the U.S.
entered the war. Lyndon Johnson wanted to wage war on poverty in the 1960s but his policy was altered because of the Vietnam War (Sheehan & Sheehan, Spring 2006 ).
As we can see, some presidents fail to achieve their vision of public policy and quite often the policies are altered because of political reasons. Thats why the successful presidential candidate needs to have a clear vision of public policy in order to be able changing it according to various factors. In conclusion it may be said that the most important qualities for the successful presidential candidate are honesty, and strong leadership skills that include organizational capacity, cognitive style, vision of public policy, emotional intelligence, political skill, and proficiency as an effective public communicator (Sheehan & Sheehan, Spring 2006 ), because all these qualities are crucial to presidential success and to success of our country. References Sheehan, J.
The Essay on Presidential Campaign Policy
The 2008 presidential campaign will be remembered for the stark contrasts between the two candidates and their respective policies. Other than the obvious contrasts of race and age, John McCain and Barack Obama represent two very different philosophies of government. Two examples of this contrast are the domestic policy area of taxes and the foreign policy issue of the war on terror. John McCain, ...
J., & Sheehan, O. T. (Spring 2006 ).
American Presidency: Categorizing and Assessing Leadership Qualities. Journal of Social Studies Research ..
