Fate of people, destinies of nations, and history itself are determined to a substantial extent by politics of political leaders. When electing a politician, voters frequently base their decision on the image created by mass media and professional image makers; they also tend to take into account only current events and tasks. This, unfortunately, can result in bringing to power a politician who eventually damages the country's position or even causes national or international cataclysms.

Performance of political government can be measured by the increase of the quality of life in the respective country during the time of ruling. Personality traits of many political leaders of different countries in various historical periods were analyzed and juxtaposed with the performance of their governments. This approach revealed four personal characteristics on which success of a political leader crucially depends.

These four properties of the personality of the politician can get the following names:

• Rationality
• Authoritativeness
• Adventurousness
• Inspiration

Let's discuss essence of these properties in relation to the politician. Rationality can be imagined as such way of thinking at which the situation is analyzed logically, initial variants are estimated, the purposes subject to achievement are planned, ways of achievement of these purposes are offered, cost of each way is determined, the positive and negative consequences arising after achievement of the planned purposes are weighed.

Adventurousness is substantially an antipode of rationality. At such way of action and thinking, the unconditional priority is given to the desirable purpose, an initial situation and ways of achievement of the objective practically are not analyzed. In result, the planned goal is seldom reached and even if it is, this is done not by optimal way, but extreme one, i.e. due to a tremendous overstrain of strength or wasting of resources, that usually results in general deterioration of a situation in comparison with initial one.

To find out what is understood as authoritativeness of a political leader we shall make small digression to the concept authority structure. The structure of authority of the country can be evidently presented as a pyramid at which top there is the political leader being supported by assistants and ministers, and those, in turn, basing on heads of the state organizations and municipal structures.

Effective functioning of a pyramid of authority is not always provided with clear understanding and consent by the parts of a pyramid with intentions and orders of the politician. Frequently, such pyramid operates more effectively when all its parts precisely follow the instructions of the leader, trusting experience and competence of the head. In other words, skill to select in an imperious pyramid people trusting to authority of the leader, provides its effective functionality and stability in extreme situations.

One more property of the personality, essential to an estimation of political performance of the leader, is inspiration. Inspiration is possible to define as set of actions directed on achievement of the overall objective having, in opinion of the leader, especially important value for the well-being of people.

The primary activity of the leader goes on reception of this well-being by people, thus other purposes are considered subordinated to this overall objective. At its significant expressiveness, inspiration is usually formulated as the ideological doctrine. On the one hand, inspiration of the leader is favorable for the country since it unites the efforts of people to the achievement of the goal which is clear for them and practically urgent indeed. On the other side, it sometimes happens so, that at excessive inspiration of the leader too much is sacrificed to the idea and there are serious public riots or even national tragedies.

These four personality traits are determined by the test Political Performance Indicator.

Any voter who feels sufficiently familiar with the biography of an aspiring politician and his behavior in various situations can take the test for the proposed candidate and get an objective assessment of the likelihood of success of his politics. This way the distortion of subjective assessment of a candidate is eliminated and a more reliable result of elections is obtained.

The political performance index ranges from 0% to 100% . In our day individuals whose political performance index is more than 75% can be considered as acceptable for a political activity. A sample of the result of the test is presented below.

• F.Roosevelt
• M.Thatcher
• R.Reagan
• B.Clinton
• T.Blaire
• J.Kennedy
• W.Churchill
• M.Gorbachev
• R.Nixon
• Catherine the Great

• A.Lincoln
• M.Avrelius
• Peter the Great
• Julius Caesar
• B.Yeltsin
• Mao Zedong
• V.Lenin
• Lech Waleca

• S.Milosevic
• Napoleon
• Saddam Hussein
• Vespasian
• Robespierre
• Nero
• Pol Pot
• J.Stalin
• A.Hitler