Critically analyse the relationship between traits, motives and effectiveness of leaders.
Leadership is a rare quality that is not commonly found in all people. It is the quality of leading a group of people towards the right direction. Most of the people are born leaders, while others develop the leadership traits, in their lifetime. Being a leader is not of much importance, but being an effective leader such that the world will idealise is important. In this assignment, one of the greatest leaders of the world, Barack Obama, has been chosen to explore the leadership traits. Barack Obama is an American politician, who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He created a history by serving as the first African American president. The leadership traits he possesses serves as an example for the whole world to follow and makes him a true leader. The traits of an effcteive leader, along with the motives and the effectiveness of a leader have been discussed in this assignment, with Barack Obama as an example.
Transformational and charismatic leadership
Barack Obama is a leader whose leadership style could be termed as transformational-charismatic leadership. The personality that he has and the charm he poses attracted the million of followers he has all around the world (Azari & Vaughn, 2014). Before the election of the American President, millions of Americans as well as foreigners were attracted to his personality and the followed the examples he had set in the society. A charismatic approach is often termed as transformational, if it invokes permanent changes (Brundidge et al., 2014). During the first term, he initiated vivid changes following his vision and showed the world that small changes could make a huge differences in the world around.
Risks taken
Leadership is associated with high risk. As a leader, risks have to be taken at every point of time, such that a revolutionary change can be taken. Barack Obama had the confidence to take risks and establish his goals and visionaries (Northouse, 2015). In the book “The Audacity of Hope”, Barack Obama wrote that he had taken a major risk to enter into the presidential risk. He confessed in his book, that many of his friends and relatives also advised him, not to take the risk of the presidential race (Azari & Vaughn, 2014). However, he took the risk and established himself as the president of the US (Brundidge et al., 2014). Thus, taking risks is another leadership trait, found in the leader Barack Obama.
Art of communication
Communication is indeed an art and a major trait for the leaders. The communication capabilities of a leader determines the extend of the followers the person has. A person cannot become a great leader, with poor communication skills (Brundidge et al., 2014). However, in order to be a great orator, a person has to be a great speaker as well. Barack Obama is both a keen listener as well as a great orator (Brundidge et al., 2014). With the communication skills that he possesses, he is able to communicate with people of any group, any age, any race, class, gender or educational and financial background (McAdams, 2014). In the year 2008, Barack Obama received the award of “The marketer of the Year”. He truly deserved this award, since with his communication skills; he virtually reached to every person in the US, thus increasing the number of followers (Sharma, 2016). Before his presidential election, the entire campaign was a showcase of his communication and oration skills (Brundidge et al., 2014).
Perseverance and conviction
The two major qualities that effective leaders possess is conviction and perseverance. These two qualities show case the confidence in a person, as well as the determination to achieve the goals, that he has set to achieve (Mio, Riggio & Herndier, 2017). In case of the chosen leader Barack Obama, these two qualities are expressed to the fullest. The confidence that he has in himself has been seen in various occasions, as a politician as well as an American politician (Brundidge et al., 2014). Even after losing the 2004 presidential race, he contested again and won with the support of his followers in the US and all over the world (Wilson, 2016). Thus, with perseverance and confidence in himself, he was successful in overcoming the barriers that resulted in the failure in 2004 presidential race.
The motives of a leader could be classified into three categories. These are as follows:
Power motive: This highlights the motives of the leader to influence others. Leaders having high power motives acts vigorously and stay determined to exert power (Swers, 2016). In this leadership motive the leader spends time in looking for ways to change the thinking pattern of the other people around (Wasike, 2017). The power motive is of two types (McAdams, 2014). These are personalised power motives and socialised power motives (Brundidge et al., 2014). In the personalised power motives, the leader enjoys money and luxury obtained from the power (Mio, Riggio & Herndier, 2017). However, in the considered example, Barack Obama is not driven by personalized power motives. He focuses on the achievement of the goals of the country and the society.
Tenacity: Leaders having tenacity, work with determination in establishing the goals. The determination and the perseverance are important for being an effective leader (Brundidge et al., 2014). Barack Obama is known for his determination and conviction. He has established himself as a charismatic leader with his diligence in work and perseverance (Wilson, 2016).
Strong work ethics: Ideal leaders have strong work ethics. They believe in the maintaining the path of truth, while they achieve their motive of work (Daft, 2014). Barack Obama has strong work ethics and he always chose the path of truth and justice even while working as a president. In whatever he did, he adhered to truth and ethics (Brundidge et al., 2014). He followed what he preached and thus attracted thousands of followers in US as well as in other countries.
Drive and achievement motive: In this type of leadership motive, the leaders put in a lot of effort in achieving the goals successfully. In this motive, the leader is driven by the motivation of achievement (McGuire et al., 2016). The leader puts in a lot of effort and takes the responsibility of the success as well as the failure. The leaders take regular feedback from the followers and enhance the levels of performances (Street, 2015). Barack Obama is driven by the achievement motive and has established his goals with determination and perseverance.
The motive by which a leader is driven is important to understand the effectiveness of their leadership. If a leader is drive by the personal power motives, then the leader will not be effective in working for the society or the people (Brundidge et al., 2014). However, leaders having drive and achievement motive with tenacity could be expected to be effective leaders, serving the society.
The effectiveness of a leader lies in the positive impact that he has on the people and the acceptance of the people. Moreover, the charm that the person has and the ideologies that he follows are also essential for being an effective leader (Wasike, 2017). In the context of Barack Obama, the effective of this leader lies in the fact that he has been successful in establishing himself as a president, from being an American politician (Street, 2015). The acceptance from the people as well as the over-whelming responses that he got from his own compatriots, as well as from the people all over the world, make him indeed an effective leader (McGuire et al., 2016). The leaders and their followers enhance the effectiveness of the leaders. The other qualities that enhances the effectiveness of a leader includes self-confidence, assertiveness, enthusiasm, perseverance, power motive, charisma (Brundidge et al., 2014). These traits present in a leader ensure the effectiveness of the leader (Daft, 2014). Barack Obama is an effective leader ad under his leadership the US has made remarkable improvements. The diligence and commitment of the leader, along with his personality has made him an ideal leader, who is looked up by many people all around the world.
Conclusion
This assignment clearly highlights the leadership traits of Barack Obama, along with the personal traits that he possess, to be one of the greatest leader in the politics of the world. He follows the charismatic leadership style along with the transformational leadership. His personality has attracted millions of people and followers all over the world. The decisions of drastic changes that he took resulted in his success as a leader. Along with being an excellent orator, Barack Obama is an efficient motivator as well. He is a daring risk taker and has the confidence of rising from failures. After his failure as a presidential contestant in 2004, he established himself as an undoubted and uncontested president of the US in 2009. Thus, it could be concluded that Barack Obaama is indeed an effective leader that the world has witnessed.
References
Azari, J. R., & Vaughn, J. S. (2014). Barack Obama and the Rhetoric of Electoral Logic. Social Science Quarterly, 95(2), 523-540.
Brundidge, J., Reid, S. A., Choi, S., & Muddiman, A. (2014). The “deliberative digital divide:” Opinion leadership and integrative complexity in the US political blogosphere. Political Psychology, 35(6), 741-755.
Daft, R. L. (2014). The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.
McAdams, D. P. (2014). Leaders and their life stories: Obama, Bush, and narratives of redemption. In Conceptions of Leadership (pp. 147-165). Palgrave Macmillan US.
McGuire, D., Garavan, T. N., Cunningham, J., & Duffy, G. (2016). The use of imagery in the campaign speeches of Barack Hussein Obama and John McCain during the 2008 US Presidential Election. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(4), 430-449.
Mio, J. S., Riggio, R. E., & Herndier, R. E. (2017). Metaphor Density in President Obama’s and Governor Romney’s Presidential Acceptance Speeches: Implications for Leadership and Conveyance of Vision. Acta Psychopathol, 3, 3.
Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Sharma, D. (2016). The global Hillary: Women’s political leadership in cultural contexts. Routledge.
Street, P. (2015). Barack Obama and the future of American politics. Routledge.
Swers, M. L. (2016). Women & Legislative Leadership in the US Congress: Representing Women’s Interests in Partisan Times. Daedalus, 145(3), 44-56.
Wasike, B. (2017). Charismatic rhetoric, integrative complexity and the US presidency: An analysis of the State of the Union address (SOTU) from George Washington to Barack Obama. The Leadership Quarterly.
Wilson, J. K. (2016). Barack Obama: this improbable quest. Routledge
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download
