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.

Chris Golis,
A very interesting piece, In my mind it ranks as the best of the week.
However,the problem I have with Westen's theory, *all* theories (that try to articulate a definition of the whole) they seem to work in a statistical or cumulative sense but don't define individuals(a case of one size fits no one ). Consequently there are significant minorities that it doesn't fit. These minorities then become potential 'wild cards' and when combined with 'which' emotion the candidate appeals to (often unintended) there is considerable variability in results.

Notwithstanding, we tend to have a culture amongst voters (aka "great unwashed") who gives Westen's theory credibility. Although I have read several other explanations for this emotionally based decision making.

Ranging from extrapolations/interpretation of our biological instincts to the more complex that factors in several different psychological and other factors of circumstance.

One therefore must be careful not to over interpret what the theory *suggests* and becomes 'self referential' dogma.
The problem is then the opportunities lost and people hurt and we lurch painfully to the next theory 'de jure'.
It is interesting to consider why human seem to have a predilection for limitation ( psychological control?) via 'Grand United Theories of everything' no matter how flawed.

An interesting article.

However, Abbot - like his Non Broadband Network - appears to be suddenly experiencing some serious connectivity issues.

Good point Examinator.

I reckon we are influenced by our emotions more than we'd like to think. But not all the time John Howard was not an appealing personality both in his party and as a public person, yet he was seen as a leader. Which might tie in with our instinctive views of what a leader is - emotion again, huh?

Anyways, Abbott's tendency to run off at the mouth has been kept in check, but his lack of science and technical understanding is not good for a leader. He is more your manager type.
Have always admired Gillard, been disappointed with her run in this election, but I am sure she is across science and has more of a vision for the future. She doesn't easily get confused either, has better control of her emotions than Abbott.

Johnny Rotten,

Tony a good manager? not in my opinion. IMO as a ex senior manager I hold the strong opinion that all managers should have an in principal knowledge of important issues under their control in addition to 'management' skills.

I have no doubt that Julia's technical knowledge on the NBN is relatively thin but at least she is engaged.
It is arguable that Kevin Rudd was too much into the nuts and bolts of government and lost the bigger picture or was unable to communicate it to his colleagues and the public. Hence he became an overworked, ineffective one man band.

I also doubt that Julia's understanding of the N&B of economics is any deeper than on any other area of govt.

Conversely Tony is clearly uninformed on economics too. In my opinion he is a second string manager.
In essence a great salesperson doesn't necessarily mean they will be a great Sales manager and vise versa.

I also believe that the party system and the way governments are chosen is dysfunctional.

My views on Abbot are irrelevant in that our seat is a Liberal one ( and this IS outer urban Qld). Regardless of what I vote I am still going to have the same effectively cardboard cut out of a local representative.

Compared to Gillard, Abbott has it easy. A perfect family - a supporting obedient wife (virtually all wives of the religious are), 3 nice female children (that temper his aggressiveness). He has the support of those who think they are righteous (the religious and the wealthy or wantabe wealthy).
Abbott has a massive ego - just the fact he wanted to be a priest and he is now leader of the Libs, shows he wants to rule others, his way (or his gods way) - but in my view this is the result of a kind of sickness of spirit at the very deepest level that is typical of virtually all politicians.

Gillard however came up through the union ranks. Unlike Abbott this is about helping the masses, not ruling them. A life fighting for workers could sour many people, particularly if they are female, but it has not done this to Gillard. In rejecting her religion, this shows she has a high EQ - she relies on her own mind, not what others say, and has courage and conviction not to just go along with the flow. Being unmarried also carries its own pains, which she has learnt to cope with.

I suspect in times of personal upheaval, say perhaps the US goes into depression, or a very close loved one dies, I think Gillard's experience in dealing with the resulting pain would be superior. In my view she wins hands down.

I must add the comment that today (30 August 2010) in the Australian Financial Review there was an extensive post election analysis by John Black using SPSS. Black said that the switch from pro-family, pro-Christian Kevin to atheist Julia led to an average anti Labor swing of 7.2% in the top 4 Pentacostal seats in Australia compared to a national average of 2.1%. On the other hand in the top 4 atheist seats Julia had a pro-Labor swing of 3.3%. On balance Black concluded the impact of Christian and family factors cost the ALP more seats than it gained.

Always nice to get independent support. :-)