Are the qualities of a leader just a confidence trick?

We may not be looking for potential leaders through the right lens

Is US society as suffering from an epidemic of high but unwarranted self-esteem?

Several years ago, I was at a playground with one of my daughters. She was about three years old at the time, and was doing what all three-year-olds do in playgrounds, which was a mixture of running around and falling over.

A young American couple were also there, with their little girl. At one point, their child fell off a kiddie-sized slide, and the mother turned to me and said: “Look at how ...