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Learning from America's first-leader
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President Barak Obama
I have heard it said more than ever in recent times; "We have a deficit of leadership in this country".
Those who say this are sometimes referring to recent events on Wall Street, or to CEOs of banks or car companies, or to our political leaders---or--- to any number of other aspects of life today that seem to indicate that leadership has been MIA all too often of late in the good old USA.
David Gergen, director of the Center for Publc Leadership at the John. F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, says:
"Not long ago we celebrated our CEOs as the new masters of the universe; some paid themselves as if they thought so, too, and their faces graced the covers of magazines everywhere. (However)....we have come to realize that the economic crisis (begun last year) was less of a matter of subprime mortgages than subprime leadership."
Gergen's remarks are included in the November 2009 issue of US News & World Report on the news stands now, and the cover story is 'Leadership and Crisis'.
This magazine issue chronicles some of what they consider the "best" leaders in the US today and also discusses Gen X and Y and their approach to leadership, among other leadership-related topics. But perhaps most striking is the candid interview with our first-leader, President Barak Obama, as well as interviews with those closest to him.
His adviser David Axelrod says of President Obama:
"He has a set of personal qualities that lend themselves to executive leadership---that sense of calm...confidence...penetrating intelligence, the ability to quickly pick through complex problems, and a willingness to trust others. He understands that his job is principally about making decisions and living with those decisions, and he is comfortable with that."
Setting aside for a moment whether or not you voted for President Obama, it is important for all of us to understand the leadership principles that anchor his approach to the hardest leadership job in the world.
As he said: "If the problem has a clear solution then it doesn't land on my desk. Somebody else has solved it. So the only things I am deciding on are things that are tough."
The article tells us that Mr Obama uses 3 principles to guide him through tumultuous times:
1. He tries to come up with practical solutions that have a high probability of success.
2. He wants to exhibit confidence at all times to reassure the country.
3. He seeks to communicate his vision in a compelling way.
He also ascribes to leadership strategies such as pulling the best people together and having them work as a team, and making sure dissenting voices are heard and options are explored. He asks for analytical rigor to be applied in evaluating a problem, and he seeks timely feedback.
How many of these principles and strategies do our company's CEOs put into every day practice? From my experience, they could do worse than learn from our first-leader.
For more on US News and World Report's current issue: www.usnews.com
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