[hlmencken]

Unless leadership skills have any overlap in the private and public space.

[bsder]

They don't.

CEO's don't have to build consensus. They can, and do, purge their ranks of dissidents. Iger, in particular, has been aggressive about this over time.

You cannot simply "fire" the people who disagree with you when you are President. We have seen what happens when you try to do that.

[legostormtroopr]

> CEO's don't have to build consensus

Yes they do. Becoming CEO of a company like Disney is just as political as becoming President.

> They can, and do, purge their ranks of dissidents.

So do Presidents. Every 4 (or 8) years a new President is elected and they replace the entire cabinet. This is probably more disruptive than a new CEO coming in and replacing a handful of disliked executives.

[bsder]

> Every 4 (or 8) years a new President is elected and they replace the entire cabinet.

I'm talking about the voters. You can't fire the chunk of voters that didn't vote for you.

I guarantee a lot of blue states would like to fire the red states who consume their tax money disproportionately.

However, we don't allow that because we are the United States of America and not the United States of People Who Agree With You.

[schnable]

CEOs can't fire their shareholders, though.

I don't think being a Fortune 50 CEO is necessarily the best preparation for president, but there is definitely a lot of overlapping skills. This is very different than the businessman as politician fetish the country often has; running a small/family business doesn't require the same skillset.

[wisty]

I believe there have been Presidents who decided to ignore the wishes of a bunch of voters who they don't agree with.

[gwright]

Of course the President can fire the people who disagree with him. In fact he should do that if the people are preventing the implementation of the President's lawful policies. The Constitution is pretty darn clear on this point:

Article 2. Section 1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

Of course it is also possible for a President to make poor decisions, but the trend towards criminalizing policy differences is not a healthy one. Elections are the solution to poor executive decisions, which is NOT the same thing as unlawful actions.

[saagarjha]

> In fact he should do that if the people are preventing the implementation of the President's lawful policies.

I believe the unwritten assumption was that the president was firing people who disagreed with him when he made unlawful policies.

[astrodust]

Representing shareholders and representing an entire population are two different things.