In politics, a candidate’s identity is a contest of contending images, one from which not even the president is excused. Just turn on the television. Over the last two weeks, you could see President Obama saluting the troops at Bagram Airfield, discussing same-sex marriage, or boogieing down with Ellen at a commercial break.

We’re trying something new here at On Leadership: We’re keeping our eyes open for interesting data points from newly published research around the Web that are worth sharing with leadership readers.

And these numbers from the Economic Policy Institute definitely caught our attention:

The defeat of Richard Lugar in Indiana’s primary Tuesday is not just a defeat for moderation in the Republican party. It’s also a loss for that quality we at one time liked in our leaders — hard-earned expertise; and for that skill we all believe we need more of — leadership.

So President Obama has said he is in favor of same-sex marriage. The announcement may be, as the RNC is saying, evidence that the president is playing politics. Or, it may have been a historic moment that simply couldn’t wait. It could also be political suicide.

The news Sunday that Scott Thompson would be resigning as CEO of Yahoo is unlikely to stun anyone who has followed the “Resumegate” that has embroiled the Internet company in recent days. (The reports in the Wall Street Journal Monday that Thompson received a diagnosis of thyroid cancer, however, is surprising and sad, to say the least.) It was hard to see how he would stay in his job — from the moment activist investor Daniel Loeb revealed, and Yahoo confirmed, that Thompson did not have the computer science degree that previous bios had stated, up until the time executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles issued a stinging response to the reported claim  by Thompson that a junior recruiter had added it to his resume.

The chatter surrounding Facebook’s roadshow this week has reached a fever, er, pitch, right down to what CEO Mark Zuckerberg was wearing. Though he was absent on the second day of the company’s pitches to investors in advance of the company’s pending IPO, Zuckerberg was criticized on Tuesday for wearing a hoodie to meet with Wall Street bankers. “He’s actually showing investors he doesn’t care that much; he’s going to be him,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, who issued the first “buy” rating on Facebook, told Bloomberg. “I think that’s a mark of immaturity.”

François Hollande’s win in France — combined with the fractured Greek government following Sunday’s elections — sent jitters through global markets Monday morning as the world came to terms with voters’ anger over austerity measures. In France, the Socialist Hollande has promised to put more of the burden for fixing the country’s economic problems onto the wealthy and to soften planned austerity measures.

It’s an enviable list, really.

They’re among the many who’ve joined Sellers at the Most Powerful Women summit. This year, from a slightly raised stage, she looks out once more across table upon table of some of the world’s most prominent female executives, artists and philanthropists. It’s the opening dinner of Fortune magazine’s annual summit on a surprisingly chilly October evening on the Southern California coastline. The 400-plus guests sit under a big, white tent on a cliff perched over the gray, choppy Pacific. Inside, the Ritz-Carlton has pulled off something that looks a lot like prom: purple sequined tablecloths and settings of pink roses illuminated by purple and pink floodlights.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as the saying goes. But is this true for women in business?

Quite possibly. We’ve all had the experience of feeling more motivated and focused when we’re dressed up for work—whether that means donning a suit when our usual office dress is khakis and a golf shirt or, for those who work from home, simply getting out of pajamas. But new research shows that wearing certain items of clothing identified with certain qualities could help improve performance, too.

If you’re a morning person, who jumps out of bed ready to take on the day but feels sluggish by the time afternoon or evening hits, you might think you should do your most creative work at the beginning of the day, when you’re fresh. Likewise, if you’re a night owl, and feel barely awake until mid-afternoon, it’s logical that you’d save your most creative work until late at night.

There are more explanations for the dearth of women in leadership roles than there are digits on a CEO’s paycheck. Boards of directors are biased, apparently. Women who take time off to have children risk never catching up. Oh, and my favorite: We supposedly don’t negotiate very well.

High CEO pay is like a zombie that will not die.

And it’s hard to understand why, considering most leadership advice and organizational theory would stop excessive pay packages dead in their tracks. They put too much emphasis on one person’s contribution, distort decisions, encourage excessive risk-taking, and damage morale at a time when the rest of the company is being forced to cut back.

It’s a few days before November 6, Election Day. Israel takes military action in the Middle East without consulting or informing the United States. The strike leads to a threat of nuclear conflict and the most dangerous international crisis the president will confront during his time in office.

Somewhere between the assassinations of Malcolm X and Dr. King and the presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson, the ascension of Louis Farrakhan, and the rhetorical flourishes and marches of Al Sharpton, well-meaning Americans of all stripes got lulled into the notion that we could only have a few black mouthpieces at a time. And that is simply the farthest thing from the truth.

Imagine you are the CEO of a major American corporation. One of your executives, who is responsible for operations in, say, Kansas, is a phenom. By every metric and every subjective measure, he is clearly in the top percentile of leadership within your company. He is just the sort of executive who might one day sit in your seat.

American higher education—long the envy of the world—is facing unprecedented challenges. While the situation varies from colleges to universities and from private to public institutions, the most pressing problems are shared.  The current situation is simply financially, academically and institutionally unsustainable.

“The Presidency,” political scientist Richard Neustadt proclaimed in his classic treatise Presidential Power , “is no place for amateurs.”

Baseball is a sport without coaches; instead, teams are led by managers, a term loaded with business-sector connotations. Though the GM is in charge of hiring and firing individual players, the manager is responsible for transforming those players into a team on the field. And while some managers get big-name players to bulk up a roster, most managers have to find a way to win without a full lineup of superstars. That is where real managerial leadership comes in, panelists agreed.

The protests, which began a month ago in New York City’s financial district, have now spread across the nation and to countries around the globe. The movement has no formal leadership structure and no singular demand. Instead, it has become an outlet for individuals and sub-movements to vocalize their frustration with a political and economic system in which, according to OccupyWallSt.org, “We are the 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.”

Theresa Amato explored the way Bachmann has reshaped her media narrative, writing:

Author: Claudio Feser

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2011

ISBN-13: 9781118149928, 202 pages

Authors: Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler, 2012

ISBN-13: 9781609943035, 144 pages

Author: Charlotte Beers

Publisher: Vanguard Press, 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1593156824, 256 pages

Author: Gonzague Dufour

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 2010

ISBN-13: 978-0071751933, 222 pages

One might think that the seven leaders who were selected by Harvard’s Kennedy School, in partnership with The Washington Post, as 2011’s Top American Leaders would have little in common. The seven men and women, who were recognized at an awards ceremony and panel discussion Monday at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., hailed from fields as diverse as bank regulation, arts management, opinion journalism and chemistry. One was born in Egypt, another on a cherry and sheep farm in Oregon, and another participated in Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Children’s March” in Alabama during the civil rights movement before being jailed as a result.