Who showed the best leadership skills?

Which raises the question, what *are* leadership skills?

Leadership, as I see it, rely heavily upon social intelligence. It centers largely on an individual's ability to discern key moods and emotions (as well as to evoke relevant reactions) in followers.

By that yardstick, Luo Lei and Xiaofei's actions fell far short of the mark. Neither was adept at shaping and responding to the needs and reactions of followers. Luo Lei tended to give up at the first sign of resistance, his first instinct being to alienate skeptics, rather than to exploit their indecision. Xiaofei was unable to use humor to deflect embarrassing or hostile situations, nor did she have much of a sense of what her classmates wanted, hence her resort to platitudes about how a vote for her would be a vote for sunshine every day (or words to that effect.)

Notwithstanding the fact that he was an irritating prima donna and schemer (the fat, overindulged-only-son type so ubiquitous in urban China), I think Cheng Cheng demonstrated the best leadership (and/or huckster) instincts. He was certainly the best at manipulating others for his own benefit while managing to convince them that he was doing *them* a favor. I was especially impressed by his smiling confidence, reminiscent of a junior Bill Clinton. He made good use of a sense of humor and a certain faux humility. Now that he has learned the importance of bribery, he should go far in New China.

Of course, I'd be remiss if I neglected to mention that the children were mouthpieces for their parents. If ever there was a demonstration of garbage in, garbage out, this is it. Luo Lei's parents taught him to rule with a firm hand and to win at all costs (especially through bribery.) Xiaofei's mother was a fairly dullwitted person who fed her daughter lines that sounded more like ads for a breakfast cereal than the "vision" they were meant to be. Instead of helping her child to lead, she suggested a shortsighted tactic that she hoped would allow Xiaofei to prevail: character assassination. ("Make a list of their faults.") Cheng Cheng benefited from the somewhat more sophisticated social intelligence of his mother, who told him to speak directly to the issue of what the job of class monitor entailed and to address the grievances of classmates. As you saw, Cheng Cheng carefully recited what his mother told him to say in his final speech, without adding any ideas of his own.

So in the end, the contest between the three students was really a contest between the competing strategies and assumptions of their parents.