What, exactly, do Americans want from their president? A strong, innovative leader or someone who simply follows the will of the people? A president who insists on the ideals of his party or someone who builds bipartisan support? A president who exercises power forcefully or someone who establishes consensus before doing anything? The answer, according to is that Americans want the president to be a leader and a follower, partisan and bipartisan, innovative and conservative. For example, Americans expect their presidents to provide visionary leadership, and yet at the same time to be ever-sensitive to public opinion polls. They want a president with the power to solve the nation's problems, yet they are inherently suspicious of centralized leadership and the abuse of power.
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Genovese et al. (1998) studied this question.