President Barack Obama’s performance on “The Tonight Show” last week prompted various friends and colleagues to discuss the question of leadership. No one came up with a definition suitable for nailing to the wall or turning into a message to scroll across the computer screen. I suggested it may be one of those things we know when we don’t see it. Kinda the reverse of former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s description of hard-core pornography. He knew it when he saw it.

And that’s the curious, if not tortured, parallel between lack of leadership and porn: with both, someone’s gonna get (fill in the appropriate verb).

I used to work closely with the CEO of a billion-dollar research and education organization with thousands of employees spread out over several locations. Looking back over his tenure, I can break down his leadership style into four principles: 1) don’t make me make a decision, 2) give folks what they want, 3) make people feel good, and 4) make them laugh. I guess you could combine the third and fourth tenets to shorten the list.

Early on, the CEO told his vice presidents not to bring him any problems. “I expect you to work them out,” he said. “If you come to me for a solution, I figure the best minds here couldn’t come up with an answer, so you’ll be stuck with whatever I come up with.” 

Shortly after that, a group of downstream managers asked permission and funding to continue an annual management conference. “I had the same sort of request at my last place,” he told me. “I always let them do it, because it takes them about a year to organize one of these things, and that keeps them away from me for a year.”

He never spoke in depth on any subject, because, as I discovered, he didn’t possess any depth of knowledge or experience. But he was awfully good with smoke and mirrors. “I don’t use prepared speeches,” he told me. “I got about six or seven basic speeches I like to use, and I use a little of one here and a little of another there, to come up with something to say. I usually don’t know what I’m going to say until I get up there.  But it’s important to know that people don’t want to think hard about things and they don’t want to hear bad news. You want to give them just a few statistics to keep the subject fresh, and tell them a little history to give them some perspective on what you’re talking about.”

And then came his request of me. “I need you to find me some new jokes,” he said. “I spend about half my time finding jokes. So, you could do me a big favor by finding some new jokes for me.”

President Obama’s appearance with Leno made me look back over the past year and at the parallels with the aforementioned CEO. Let’s start with decisions. We’ll have to give the president the benefit of the doubt here and assume someone else is making the big decisions, like naming tax cheats to his cabinet, or picking a treasury secretary who was butt deep into the AIG bonus fiasco from the git-go. Those must have been examples of “If you come to me for a nominee, I figure the best minds here couldn’t come up with a good choice, so you’ll be stuck with the person I choose.” 

Next is give folks what they want. People wanted change going into the November elections. Every national poll last summer showed nine out of ten Americans did not like Congress’ performance, while eight out of ten didn’t like the president’s performance. The voters wanted change, and that was the mantra repeated by candidate Obama at every stop. It didn’t matter if the change were cosmetic and easily reversed when needed, like with John McCain’s assertion that the fundamentals of the economy are sound, a position derided by candidate Obama as a statement by someone out of touch with the realities of the American people. Then a few days ago, a bright light shone from the heavens and suddenly the fundamentals of the economy are sound. Praise the Lord and pass the ipecac.

Then came the I’m-just-one-of-you evenings with Leno, with Mr. Obama as the sole guest on a night that could have included an enhanced starlet, a stoned rocker, or a kid who whistles Chopin through his nose. No, we didn’t have one of those. Pity. I’m not sure even the most vapid of entertainers would have made fun of the Special Olympics just so folks could feel good and laugh.

Memo to President Obama: Laughter is no substitute for leadership.