Romney, an executive in chief?

Since 1901, 21 men have served as president; 16 had no real experience as a businessperson in the private sector. That latter group included the following: Theodore Roosevelt, who operated a cattle ranch in the Dakotas; Woodrow Wilson, who served as president of Princeton University; Harry Truman, who owned a haberdashery (he went bankrupt) for a few years in Kansas City, Mo.; and Ronald Reagan, who served as president of the Screen Actors Guild and as a spokesperson for General Electric. But none of these positions qualify as major private-sector business experience. None of the men ran a large business organization.

What most marks the pre-presidential careers of these 16 presidents is extensive public-sector experience, much of it in elective office. Some, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower(military), John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnsonand Bill Clinton, had pre-presidential careers that were almost exclusively in the public sector.

As a predictor of presidential success, public-sector experience has a mixed record. According to a review of 17 recent efforts to rank presidents, including those conducted by C-SPAN and the Wall Street Journal, several presidents with considerable public-sector experience rank below average or worse — Calvin Coolidge and Richard Nixon among them. By contrast, several presidents with almost exclusively public-sector experience are widely regarded as having had relatively or very successful presidencies. This list includes both Roosevelts, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower and, to a lesser extent, Kennedy, Johnson and Reagan.

A review of the five presidents who did have extensive private-sector experience is somewhat more instructive. Warren Harding was a newspaper publisher. Herbert Hoover was an engineer who managed mining operations. Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. Both Bushes had longtime experience in the oil business, andGeorge W. Bush was a managing partner of a baseball team. None of these five presidents rank above average, and three — George W. Bush, Harding and Hoover — are near the bottom of most rankings.

The samples of 21 presidents overall and the five with private-sector experience are far too small to draw firm conclusions. But the review suggests, at minimum, that private-sector business experience is neither a great predictor of presidential success nor — given the success of many presidents with no private-sector experience — a prerequisite for presidential success.

Moreover, even a rudimentary analysis of history and politics suggests that success in public leadership may require a very different set of skills than that required in private-sector leadership.

Private-sector executives have a much clearer measuring stick that can define direction and success: specifically, a bottom line, defined in terms of growth and/or profit. For presidents, goal-setting and definitions of success are more complex, more likely to change over time and, given much greater levels of subjectivity, harder to assess. In their non-bottom-line world, perception can sometimes be almost as important as reality.

Private-sector executives also have far fewer constituencies that need to be accommodated. Though their firms will encounter competition, they personally do not face a built-in opposition and do not have to be overly concerned about negative effects on others, at least so long as they are achieving definable organizational goals. Theirs is a competitive universe, and losing is part of it.

Presidents, by contrast, almost inevitably confront a concerted and organized opposition. They must try to satisfy multiple constituencies that, if too displeased, have built-in means of fighting back. They may certainly favor some constituencies, but much of the time they must at least try to appear as if they are serving — or at least trying not to harm — all of them.