Meet me in Normandy

General Omar Bradley, who commanded the US First Army on D-Day as part of the landing of the Allies in Normandy, is credited with the quote:

“The greatness of a leader is measured by the achievements of the led. This is the ultimate test of his effectiveness.” General Omar Bradley

Interestingly enough another leader, this time it was Nicolas Sarkozy, was also in Normandy last week when he put Bradley’s quote to the test. To rally the national recovery spirit after the just-mastered recession, Sarkozy appeared in a Norman manufacturing plant to speak about the state of the French economy - and probably show that he had overcome his fainting spell in late July to reclaim his machismo bravado.

As it turns out, Sarkozy’s staffers screened the employees of the manufacturing plant to ensure that only those were selected to appear standing behind Monsieur Sarkozy that are actually shorter than his stature of 5’5”. In fact, several employees were shipped in from affiliate plants to stand behind their nation’s leader, since few shorter than him were found in the main plant.

One could easily argue that, by General Bradley’s definition, Sarkozy is truly a great leader – for he very effectively has boosted the ability of those he leads to enhance his own greatness (or at least the perception of his own physical greatness). Why and how is it that the world’s leaders these days spend this much effort and energy on window dressing and fluff that has no bearing on and does not add any value to the outcome (other than the self-targeted ego boost) of things they set about to accomplish?

Even when looking at Vladimir Putin, who at 5’5” has little to worry about compared to current Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s 5’4”, yet he ensures that his virility is publicly visible and his manliness is beyond doubt. I am not saying height has anything to do with leadership. But why the hell try to cover it up and this way actually make it into an issue? And by the way, what do height and leadership have to do with presidential boob shots in the first place? The gallery of available naked torso pics of global leaders (let’s not forget Obama) is starting to get so out of hand that one cannot help but wonder whether the next Playboy pictorial will not be entitled “Farmer’s daughters of the Midwest” but rather “Great racks of great leaders”.

With all the time and effort spent on making our leaders look good -including by our leaders themselves- who is actually surprised that politicians get so little done?