Good article.

I feel that Abbott is underestimated for his IQ. Sure, his desire to think and be honest about many issues has caused some trouble in the past, but this election campaign has demonstrated a level of discipline that shows that he is a leader that can change given the situation.

As the article has demonstrated, he has been an effective minister in the past, and I am confident that his intellect and leadership style be pragmatic enough to meet the hard issues that confront Australia today should he be elected

For those readers familiar with the personality and temperament types as defined by Myer/Briggs it is interesting to note that they divide into 4 types. There are the Intuitive Thinkers (NT), the Sensing Judgementals (SJ), the Sensing Perceptives (SP) and the Intuitive Feeling (NF). In past history the Presidents of the USA and the Prime Ministers of Australia have all come from the NT, SJ or SP groups.
They are the Intellectuals, the Workers and the Action orientated.
We could consider John Howard to be a Worker, Bob Hawke to be an Action man and Kevin Rudd to be an Intellectual.
But Tony Abbott is different and thus not easily understood by the Australia people as the NFs make up a very small group within the overall population.
They have a great concern about morality and are people who give of themselves. They are spiritually motivated, so often go into religious fields of work, or psychology, teaching, and nursing. Some of them crusade for their beliefs by writing, and the extroverts in this group often become journalists.
Tony Abbott has been both a priest and a journalist.
To understand a NF personality one needs to understand their cause.
I would like to see Tony Abbott elected as Prime Minister of Australia to see what impact such an NF type could have on the country.
Yes, I believe he has the emotional intelligence to be able to relate to the 'feelings' of everyday Australians.

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, are they Leaders or Managers or something else?
e.g.
Leaders set strategic directions, influence and motivate, they are concerned with effectiveness.
Managers influence policy, keep systems working, they are concerned with efficiency.
Administrators carry out policies formulated by someone else.

Remember effectiveness is doing the right thing and efficiency is doing the right thing the right way.
Many Politicians have been guilty of doing the wrong thing efficiently.

So what makes an effective leader or manager?

MANAGER Attempts to control results.
LEADER Studies the system of causes and acts on causes.

MANAGER Acts as judge.
LEADER Does not judge people on results which are combined effects of the interaction of the system and people.

MANAGER Primary job is "fire fighting" (problem solving).
LEADER Primary job is to improve processes and prevent problems.

MANAGER Holds people accountable for improvement.
LEADER Removes or reduces barriers that prevent people from doing (and taking pride in) quality work.
MANAGER Calls defects to peoples' attention and assigns cause to each.
LEADER Works with employees to improve the process. Works with employees who feel free to inform management of conditions that need correction

MANAGER Identifies who is above or below average; attempts to make all performance above average?
I have met people who believe they can actually do this.
LEADER Identifies people who are in need of special help. Knows that average improves as all performance grows better

MANAGER Attempts to ascribe all performance to the individual and ranks employees accordingly.
LEADER Recognises that performance is the result of the combination of individual effort, effect of the larger system and the interaction of the two.

MANAGER Identifies which employees are not motivated or committed and works to remove them.
LEADER Identifies performance which is exceptional (rare, outside the system). Works with those whose performance is exceptionally
poor. Learns from those whose performance is exceptionally good.
Realises there may not be any exceptional performance in his/her group.

My very favorite book on how emotions are the only things that matter in politics is Between Jesus and the Market: The Emotions That Matter in Right-Wing America by Linda Kintz---a truly scary book.

Admittedly is about right-wing religiosity in the USA but it does provide a useful template for understanding the emotions that matter to conservative religionists here in Australia.

Of course Ronald Reagan intuitively knew how to tap into and seduce the emotions of plain speaking, plain folks America. The emotions and applied politics of binary exclusions.

Psycho-History is also a very useful tool for understanding how deeply primitive collective emotions generate the Zeitgeist, and the applied politics of the times.

Pedantic as always: the Truth About Ronald Reagan

http://www.psychohistory.com/reagan/rcontent.htm

Plus Alice Miller on Emotional Intelligence

http://eqi.org/amiller.htm

Of course the most consistent advocates of FOR YOUR OWN GOOD corporal punishment for children are conservative religionists

On the primacy or perhaps onliness of emotions.

All the possible kinds of actual or potential verbally conceptualized ideas are nothing more than primitive power-games, played out between systematically, and pre-verbally, adapted brain-and-nervous-system-patterned structures of the human body-mind complex.

The pre-verbal brain-and-nervous-system-patterned fixed ideas of creationist religionists, and of religionists in general, are direct extensions either infantile and childish dependency patterning. The patriarchal "God"-idea.

By contrast the patterning of rationalists or scientific materialists, are direct extensions of adolescent independence patterning. Who quite rightly cant truck with the patriarchal "God"-idea, but are only reacting to this God-idea in an adolescent fashion.

This now dominant adolescent mentality or patterning, has inevitably, and even quite rightly, all but defeated the infantile/childish patterning or mentality. Although there is a huge resurgence of old-time creator-god religiosity all over the world.

But because of its adolescent assertion of presumed complete independence, the adolescent has not yet grown into mature adult-hood.

The tragic irony is that the now dominant adolescent mentality has created the situation portrayed in the recent Avatar film.

Strangely enough the loudest supporters of the adolescent techno-invaders were almost uniformly advocates of the old time patriarchal father-knows-best infantile/childish creator god religiosity.

Unfortunately the many of the general public seem more interested in personality rather than character. Julia's charm seems to have hidden her feminist trait of manipulation and final stabbing to gain her position.