The conventional wisdom on leadership and management is clear: the first matters more than the second. Warren Bennis’s classic On Becoming a Leader is typical. In a lengthy comparison between leaders and managers, he describes leaders as luminaries and managers as mere mortals. For example:

• “The manager administers; the leader innovates.”
• “The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.”
• “The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.”

My own Center for Public Leadership (at Harvard’s Kennedy School) testifies that the now countless courses, seminars, workshops, institutes and centers devoted to this general area prefer to boast of teaching “leadership” – for leadership is hot and management is not.

Yet we have just been reminded of how important, indispensable, is the role of the manager, even in contrast to that of the leader. For while the stunning success up to now of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is a tribute to his promise as a leader, it provides evidence of his capacity as a manager.

Managing Money
Obama not only raised money the smart way (large numbers of relatively small contributions via the Internet), he spent it the smart way. While Hillary Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the early Iowa caucuses and then ran out of money later in the race, Obama carefully calculated costs all along. He did not spend his money frivolously – on everything from outrageously expensive consultants to outrageously expensive catering costs – nor did he have to drain his own bank account as did Clinton to keep the show on the road.

Managing People
If Obama’s choice of campaign manager is any indication, he can pick a good team. David Axelrod has proven to be a master political strategist and tactician, putting together a string of primary and caucus victories on behalf of a candidate who seemed at the start to come out of nowhere. As New York Times columnist Frank Rich put it, “The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done.” Meanwhile in February, after a series of stunning defeats, Clinton’s campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, bit the dust.

Managing Expectations
Was it Clinton’s idea to claim victory before victory was in hand - or was it one of her handlers? No matter. Either way, it was a managerial mistake for her to declare in November (to interviewer Katie Couric), “It will be me.” And it was a managerial mistake to declare weeks later (to interviewer George Stephanopoulos), well before Super Tuesday, that by February 5th the race would “be over.”

The point is that of the three leading candidates for president right now, that is, McCain included, it is Obama who has proved much the best manager. Whether he would prove the best leader necessarily remains an open question. But of his managerial skills – which have been and still are of paramount importance - there can be scant doubt.