ABSTRACT
The hedgehog/fox terminology has been used by a number of scholars in the last decade to describe the same dichotomy. Hedgehogs are transformational leaders, while foxes are transactional ones. There are writers who do not favor one type over the other. Hedgehogs bring a sense of history needed to craft new visions connecting the past with the future, while foxes provide an understanding of geography, of present conditions in the terrain they inhabit, which is necessary to obtain resources and avoid trouble. Interestingly, some journalists used the fox/hedgehog metaphor to describe the various candidates. But there was some confusion about who fit which description and which type of leader was needed more. Barack Obama inherited a crisis parallel to the one that Franklin Roosevelt faced, and he appears to be attempting to address it in a similar way: by enunciating a new hedgehog concept of fairness to remedy the excesses of the recent past.
