Nicholas Sarkozy is president-elect of France, but that does not mean he will be able to lead. There are four conditions necessary for an individual to lead an organization, and Sarkozy has only fulfilled the first - position. The other three necessary conditions are period, people, and place. It appears that the period is ripe for change in France because the country has dropped from being the eighth wealthiest country in the world to the 17th, its public debt has quintupled since 1980. But are the people ready? "It is difficult to anticipate a country's readiness for change because so much depends on the leader's capacity to transform the prevailing mentality and on whether the initial results generate a critical mass of support for additional reform." (Alvaro Vargas Llosa). The sad truth is that if the people do not want to follow a leader - the person cannot lead. The leadership condition of place refers to the domain that the leader best serves in. Is Sarkozy ready for a fight? Great Britain was able to make painful transitions because they had fighters like Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher at critical moments in their history. Sarkozy faces a daunting challenge - history will show if he is a leader or not.