MICHAEL USEEM, COMMENTARY: We should think and act like a CEO or even a President. We're not a CEO nor the President, but if we think and act on behalf of the company or the country, we'll be doing the right thing. Consider the Union officer who accepted the ceremonial surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox. The U.S. Civil War was winding down and Lincoln was already seeing reconciliation as the priority. When the bugle sounded, the midlevel Union commander ordered his federal troops to respectful attention as the enemy regiments filed onto the field. His grand gesture was instantly recognized by the surrounding army and it started the reconciliation that Lincoln so desired. The Union commander was thinking like the president. But what happens when our president or our CEO is not thinking strategically? It is then essential that we do it for them. Consider what Enron V.P. Sherron Watkins tried to do a year ago. She warned CEO Ken Lay that Enron was about to implode in a wave of accounting scandals. Lay was evidently concerned more about selling his options and saving his company, but Watkins courageously came forward to press him to think the way he should have been thinking. If only more midlevel managers at Enron and elsewhere had thought strategically when their CEO was not, Enron and like disasters might have been averted. In short, we must take charge even when we're not in charge. This is Mike Useem.