Leadership Style Analysis Of Barack Obama

Early Political Career

Question:

Discuss About The President And Served In United States Senate?

Barack Hussein Obama born on 4^th August 1961 was the 44^th President from 2009 to 2017 of the United States and American politician. He became the first African American to become the president and served in United States Senate. He is a true leader involved in helping community and possesses qualities of an effective leader. With his perseverance and conviction, during his eight years of tenure, he brought a change in the running of the country and was an inspiring leader. Therefore, the following report deals with the analysis of leadership style of the chosen leader, Barack Obama, leadership theories, organizational change and change management.

Barack Obama is the first African American to become the President of United States and set a history to change from Caucasian to Black president bringing about transformation. This rhetoric transformation was possible due to his transformational leadership acted as catalyst for this huge change. He made a change that pushed the America’s tolerance limits for transformation. He broke the racial barrier and became the first black president of United States. His political career started in 1996 in Illinios State Senate and, 2^nd November 2004, he won the Senate seat in U.S. and on 5^th January 2005, he became the fifth African American to be popularly elected in the U.S. Senate. Finally, on 10^th February, 2007 he became accounting President of the United States (Greenstein 2009).

The transformational leadership style of Obama played an effective role that unified and contributed to his presidential election. He has the ability to inspire people who would follow the leader’s vision that results in the betterment of an individual as well as common people. He exhibited transformational leadership style where he stimulated, motivated and inspired people to work towards a common vision. He believed that his vision would work for the greater good for the people, community and the country as a whole. This leadership style is of great influence in any organization, movement, business, and politics that aid in making people unified towards a common goal though behaviour change. This leadership style is distinct from other styles as it is extended beyond behaviours traits and characteristics. It is about intellect, inspiration and individualized consideration. Obama proposed this inspiration through communication where his intellect reflected through his interaction with people with establishment of common vision. His communication skills reflected charisma and therefore, it is foundation of the transformational leadership style (Green and Roberts 2012).

Transformational Leadership Style

According to Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy (2014) transformational leaders need to develop and possess skills that are beyond basic administrative capabilities and management like direction, planning and delegation. However, to become a transformation leader, the development of effective communication is important which the primary skill for this leadership style is.

The evidence-based approach to transformational leadership is through communication as they have the ability to articulate well and this is the reason Obama became a successful transformational leader (Gliem and Janack 2008). He inspired many people during his presidency and spearheaded change. He transformed many organizations, followers, societies and institutions. His campaign and election both acted beyond symbolic across the globe and showed right results at right time. Like transformational leaders, he also had high aspirations and stimulated innovation. During his tenure, he intellectually stimulated people both supporters and adversaries with his vision. He delivered well on the important dimensions of transformational leadership style through striving for change. He articulated a compelling vision, listening, stimulation of productive dialogue, attending to the needs of his followers, negotiation, rewarding and punishment as appropriate (Quader 2011).        

Intellectual stimulation is the essential component of transformational leadership to bring about successful change. Obama hinged more on ideas involving emotions and had the potential to stir others’ emotions (Pepper 2010). He had demonstrated ultimate transformational and charismatic leadership qualities and brought miraculous changes in the country. His leadership helped people to see opportunities where others saw problems and obstacles. He had the confidence to take risks and left no space for any doubts. He always stayed calm and had faith in this work. During his tenure, he created a culture of openness, determination and integrity that permeated through throughout his tenure.  He conveyed powerful messages that demonstrated his transformational leadership style. His message conveyed personal empowerment and possibility so that people achieve their goals and work towards the progress of the country by taking the responsibility of taking productivity, performance and profit to a new level.  Obama was also a charismatic leader. He words have inspired millions of people and many uninvolved Americans got into the political arena and showed what they can believe in. His greatest strength was not only to inspire people, but also to make them informed and transformed. Therefore, in this way he made transformation inspiration and information to bring into action (Bligh and Kohles 2009).

Transformational leadership theory is defined as an approach where leaders bring about change in the individuals as well as in the social systems. This theory explains that there should be positive and valuable change among the followers sharing a common goal. In its authentic form, transformational leaders enhance morale, motivation and performance of the followers. In this way, leaders are able to connect the sense of identity of followers with self-mission and inspiring them and in becoming a role model. This is the reason Obama became a transformation leader who has vision aligned with the needs of the followers. These types of leaders have high expectations and clear goals that were inspiring and far-sighted. His worked with the people and motivated them to create followers who are aspiring to work beyond their capabilities. They have a charismatic appeal and work with people who are devoted to bring about a positive change. He had a consistent vision and mission and guided his followers by giving them a sense of risk taking and challenge. These types of leaders are innovative and creative in nature and stimulate it into people so that they are able to find opportunities instead of viewing problems. This made him a transformational leader where she inspired millions of people and drove the country towards meticulous change. Transformational leaders have effective communication skills and similarly, Obama developed a common vision and communicated this to followers convincingly by fostering trust and inspiring them to take action (Avolio and Yammarino 2013).

Evidence-Based Approach

Although this leadership style is effective, it has some pitfalls. Transformational leaders greatly accept risks for driving innovation that might turn out to be detrimental and disruptive. Obama tried to bring about change in the healthcare by addressing its problems. However, many observers criticized that he should have not delegated the healthcare to the congressional leaders rather should have joined directly at the personal level. He did not involve in the complex matters that greatly demanded his personal involvement. Although transformation leadership style stir emotions and stimulate intellect in others, Obama failed to do that in the case of healthcare sector where he failed to capitalize his communication skills. The overall impact of his leadership style showed that he was not a completely transformational leader and failed to deploy complex issues personally and strategically (Foss 2017).

Transformational leadership share multiple similarities with charismatic leadership style. Charismatic leadership is defined by the persuasiveness and charm of the leader. They are driven by commitment and convictions to the cause. Leaders are good orators or skilled communicators who are verbally very eloquent, but try to communicate with others on a personal level. They are known to show expertise and devotion with clear vision in politics or business with a highly engaging audience. Obama is also a skilled communicator and exhibited economics rhetoric aspiring millions of people. His communication and connectivity with people of the country exhibited strategies of motivational, inspirational, charismatic and visionary leader promoting shared values, goals in order to improve the lives of people through change and innovation (Northouse 2015).

Barack Obama was successful in bringing about a season of change when he came to power and established an organization changes to almost every sector. It has to be in a manner that will be the most acceptable by the recipients, the normal public. Needless to say, it could not have been an easy pursuit to enforce organizational change of that magnitude and do not have reluctance and rebellion against compliance in the path, however he could overcome it fluidly with his shrewd political knowledge and charismatic leadership skills (Newsom 2010).

Every organization has a unique characteristic culture and when the organizational change threatens the very culture of the organization, the challenges are inevitable. It has to be understood that Barack Obama made history when he became the very first ‘black’ president of the United States of America, which had been a revolutionary change in itself for the nation who had only seen leadership from a conventional ‘white’ point of view. Hence, Obama had to overcome a few extra hurdles to remove the orthodox racial misconceptions from the political world and establish himself as a worthy leader; he could do it so beautifully because of his exceptional transformational leadership skills (Northouse 2015).

Theories of Transformational Leadership

However Obama had motivational and inspirational leadership skills up his sleeves since the very beginning of his career. The former president of USA worked as a community organizer in the 1980s and word has it that his understanding of organizing and managing a community perfectly reflected in his leadership style as he attempted to organize and manage the USA. Many of the critics have always discussed about charismatic leadership theory when discussing Obama, however the transformational leadership aspects of his working style cannot be overlooked (Daft 2014).

According to the stage theory of organizational change, there are definite and specific stages or step through which any particular organizational change is brought about and in order to establish sustainable change management a leader must focus into smoothing out each of those steps. The theory of transformational leadership speaks of creating an optimistic and inspiration vision about the outcome of the change, Barack Obama could do it effortlessly with his supreme farsightedness and expertise in leadership and political management (Quader 2011). President Obama had the thirst for power like any other political leader, but what could have set him apart is that he used that desire to generate a vision of a unified nation. It works together towards the betterment of the society. He adapted all modern technologies he could to drive his point across and never lost sight of his vision, neither let any of his followers would do, which is what enabled him to overcome any hurdle that he encountered along his path for success.

Bringing an organizational change requires a myriad of different skills; successful change management is on the top of that list for any motivational political leader. As president Obama attempted to break all the conventional political stereotypes in his career one brick at a time, change management skills have been a vital strength in his armour. One of the key attributes of Obama that has been appreciated throughout his career is his shrewd farsightedness. He interpreted very early in his career that with the unified vision of a transformed America he had with equality and innovation at the focal point, he had to invest any and all resources he might had. Hence, he anchored the need for change in the young generation to his benefit and utilized any technology he could get his hands on to drive across his vision to the entire nation (Edwards III 2012). Everyone strives for change, and with dire need of equality and justice that America had been in, Obama and his transformational vision received a magnanimous response from the citizen. Communication is considered to be one of the greatest foundations on which the theory of change management is established. President Obama utilized his charismatic communication skills to motivate the entire nation to see his vision and feel his desire for absolute transformation in every sector. The development and growth in both technological, societal and economic aspects that USA saw in his time bears the conspicuous proof of the phenomenal success Obama attained for is leadership and change management strategies (Johansen 2012).

Conclusion

There are a myriad of different leadership styles and different political leaders took the aid of different leadership styles. In case of Barack Obama, the key to his success had been his transformational and charismatic leadership skills. He had an insatiable thirst for power and a vision to morph USA into a nation that has exceptional technological and societal developments all the while having equality and justice as core strengths. Obama never let the power and position influence his ideals and principles and he never underestimated the abilities of his citizen to facilitate change. These leadership qualities helped him remain a people’s president throughout his career giving him an enviable support from his followers glorifying him as one of the exceptional leaders for the coming generation to look up to.

References

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Bligh, M.C. and Kohles, J.C., 2009. The enduring allure of charisma: How Barack Obama won the historic 2008 presidential election. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(3), pp.483-492.

Daft, R.L., 2014. The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.

Edwards III, G.C., 2012. Overreach: Leadership in the Obama presidency. Princeton University Press.

Foss, S.K., 2017. Rhetorical criticism: Exploration and practice. business law.

Gliem, D.E. and Janack, J.A., 2008. A portrait of a transformational leader: An analysis of text and image on BarackObama. com. American CommuniBarack Obama: Leadership styleD. and Roberts, G.E., 2012. Transformational leadership in a postmodern world: The presidential election of Barack Obama. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 11(1), p.9.

Greenstein, F.I., 2009. The presidential difference: Leadership style from FDR to Barack Obama. Princeton University Press.

Johansen, R., 2012. Leaders make the future: Ten new leadership skills for an uncertain world. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Nanjundeswaraswamy, T.S. and Swamy, D.R., 2014. Leadership styles. Advances in management, 7(2), p.57.

Newsom, T., 2010. Developing African-American leaders in today’s schools: Gifted leadership, the unfamiliar dimension in gifted education. Black History Bulletin, 73(1), p.18.

Northouse, P.G., 2015. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.

Pepper, K., 2010. Effective principals skillfully balance leadership styles to facilitate student success: A focus for the reauthorization of ESEA. Planning and Changing, 41(1/2), p.42.

Quader, M.S., 2011. Perception of leadership styles and trust across cultures and gender: A comparative study on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. South Asian Journal of Management, 18(2), p.30.