Don’t laugh when you see the title of a new book that challenges the elite’s view that President Bush is no brainiac: The Leadership Genius of George W. Bush. Really. “We did it,” says coauthor Carolyn Thompson, a leadership expert, “because he’s so widely underestimated and because everybody thinks he’s not what he really is.” That would be Master Leader, she and James Ware conclude in their scholarly study. More in-depth than others like The Rumsfeld Way, it charts Bush’s 10 common-sense leadership lessons, like: Hire smart, build trust, talk straight, and leave aides alone. “General Patton,” they write, “followed the same strategy.” Yet unlike the field commander, Bush gets no respect, Ã la Rodney Dangerfield. But that, too, says Thompson, is part of Bush’s genius. “He likes to be underestimated.” She’s even copied her two favorite Bush traits. While unpresidential at times, he tells it like he sees it. And he’s religious about sticking to his schedule, which includes two hours of exercise and home by 7 p.m. “I do the same now and it works,” she says. “He’s made a believer out of me.”
(via Improbable Research)
