Tony Blair: evaluation

Transcript context

…Many people have a preconception that if you could get a successful CEO or businessperson into office, these executive skills would transfer over pretty well into becoming a head of state. Is that true? If not, what is it that they'd be lacking that you need to be an electable leader? This is really interesting and I think a lot about this. The truth is those skills would transfer to being a political leader. They're not the only skills you need because you still have to be a political leader. Therefore, you've got to know how to manage your party. You've got to know how to frame certain things. As a CEO of a company, you're the person in charge. You can more or less lay down the law. Politics is more complicated than that. When highly skilled CEOs come into politics, oftentimes they don't succeed. That's not because their executive skill set is the problem. It's because they haven't developed a political skill set. I was reading your memoir. There were a couple of times where you said that you realized later on that you had more leverage. In retrospect, you were able to do things that you didn't do at the time. Is that one of the things that would change if you went back to 1997? Would you realize, "I actually can fire this entire team if I don't think they're doing a good job. I actually can cancel my meetings with ambassadors." Did you have more leverage than you realized at the time?…

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