The recent national elections in France and the seemingly unending march of presidential politics in the United States caused me to reflect recently on a 'silent' leader - Raoul Wallenberg. This man was a Swedish diplomat from a prominent family who risked his life in World War II to rescue as many as 100,000 Jews in Hungary from extermination. Here was a man who faced seemingly insurmountable odds, the might of Nazi Germany, yet made a huge difference.

Wallenberg quietly used his influence as a diplomat from the Swedish legation in Budapest to provide Swedish protective passes to thousands and thousands of Jews that were destined for extermination. Before he arrived in July of 1944, there were only 230,000 Jews left out of nearly 700,000 before the deportations. Perhaps his single bravest act was thwarting the order to massacre the remaining 100,000 Jews at the war's end. Through his influence, the SS general responsible called off the order for the killings and Budapest shortly thereafter fell out of Nazi hands.

After the war ended, however, Raoul Wallenberg himself disappeared. In 1991, Swedish radio and supporting documents reportedly confirmed a Soviet claim that he died of a heart attack in a Moscow prison in 1947.

The man is remembered today for the "Wallenberg Effect;" a set of leadership characteristics that consists of knowledge, objective, ingenuity, confidence and courage. Raoul Wallenberg deserves to have a leadership ideal named after him.