Fortune magazine has just released its list of the World's Greatest Leaders. They described the list of 50 as, "In business, government, philanthropy and the arts, and all over the globe, these men and women are transforming the world and inspiring others to do the same."
Just for a sense of perspective, Pope Francis #3. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is #4. Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, is #10. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is #21. And according to Fortune magazine, the Greatest Leader in the entire World, coming in at #1, is...Theo Epstein, president of the Chicago Cubs!! No, really. Honestly, it's a strange list, even when one takes into consideration the "...and inspiring others" part. There are some fully-understandable names on it, along with a few head-scratchers. For instance, the list includes Janet Yellen, Justin Trudeau and Jamie Dimon, but also Samantha Bee as #19 Greatest Leader in the World, John Kasich (at #12, no less, perhaps most known for getting about 3% of Republican votes in the primary and not wanting to be vice president), Shakira at #27, Joe Biden -- but not Barack Obama, Melinda Gates -- but not Bill, and some others, graspable and otherwise. I think it's terrific that they included Ava DuVernay on their list of 50 -- if her name isn't familiar to you, she directed the movie Selma, just won an Oscar for producing the documentary 13th, which she also directed, and is the first black woman to direct a movie budgeted at $100 million, though it hasn't been released yet -- but they have her as the 6th Greatest World Leader. One spot above U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and two ahead of Tsai Ing-Wen, the first female president of Taiwan. Hey, to each their own. So be it. It's a list. And at the top of the Fortune magazine list (which you can see in full here), head-scratches or not, there he is, Theo Epstein at #1 -- the World's Greatest Leader. Hey, it's great to have one's love of a baseball team so richly justified... Boy, is there going to be fun and joshing at the Cubs Spring Training camp and through the entire season, as if celebrating their first World Series in 108 years wasn't enough. Here's what Fortune wrote about him, and their reasoning -- "The Cubs owe their success to a five-year rebuilding program that featured a concatenation of different leadership styles. The team thrived under the affable patience of owner Tom Ricketts, and, later, under the innovative eccentricity of manager Joe Maddon. But most important of all was the evolution of the club's president for baseball operations, Theo Epstein, the wunderkind executive who realized he would need to grow as a leader in order to replicate in Chicago the success he'd had with the Boston Red Sox." And no, Donald Trump was not on the list. Nor was the team president of the St. Louis Cardinals.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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