The rise of Barack Obama in the most powerful position in the world altered the concept of leadership in the United States and across the globe. Shel Leanne, the author of Leadership the Barack Obama Way: Lessons on Teambuilding and Creating a Winning Culture in Challenging Times , is an expert on the leadership style of Obama. The book examines the ins and outs of President Obama, which enabled him to ride to the highest power within a short period. Leanne explains how businesses can adopt various leadership strategies of Obama to boost their performance and production. Across the book, Leanne demonstrates skills of extraordinary leadership shown by Obama, especially on his excellent communication skills, careful planning, and meticulously honed.
Leanne argues that winning trust and confidence is the first step that every leader should focus on. From the moment he entered into politics, during campaign and election as the first Black American president, Obama focused on winning the trust and confidence of Americans. Leaders need to create a strong first impression through image and body before moving to impress the public through voice and lastly through facts and ethical practices. Once Obama won the trust and confidence of Americans, the second strategy was to communicate his vision effectively. Obama is among the renowned orator in the world whose speech demonstrates adherence to ethos, logos, and pathos. According to Leanne (2009), leaders need first to steer common ground and help the audience see and believe your words or information. Leaders should always demonstrate appeal to logic, which is achievable through skillful persuasion. In businesses, people believe information or communication, which is based on facts and logic. Across his various speeches, Obama used logic to persuade Americans to vote for him for two terms and also support his multiple policies.
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Once leaders communicate their vision, the next thing is to create a strong winning team. The leader needs to leverage a strong reputation through understanding the importance of Teflon and following strong adherence to ethical standards. A good leader is he who listens and gives a lending hand while remaining true to their words. Across the chapter four, Leanne describes Obama as a leader who demonstrated strength and superior preparedness. Despite the many challenges faced by Obama during his presidential reign, he remained calm under fire hence creating a winning culture for the eight years. The fourth chapter focuses on the importance of building friends in unusual places. The success of any leader lies in the ability to make pragmatic sides of friends by moving close to friends and not limiting to expected allies. According to Leanne (2009), President Obama's leadership was based on team building, where he met with diverse people and established a common ground. Similarly, any business leader who aspires to succeed in business should follow the same footstep of focusing on the future, respecting potential friends, and expanding networks. Most leaders fail because of holding grudges instead of focusing on improving performance through developing networks. Building and leading a winning team is another important aspect of leaders shown by President Obama. Across various businesses, leaders need to focus on building a culture of teamwork, building staff for excellence, and promoting cultural ethics. By focusing on a winning team, Obama managed to benefit America from innovation derived from the group.
Across the book, Leanne shows the importance of moving beyond "high performance" to "all hands." The leader needs to promote culture through customs and practices, provide affirmation, and match skills and interests. An excellent leader is the one who rewards team excellence, train adequately, manage expectation, and keep teamwork going despite the challenges faced. Leaders should always focus on using diversity as a source of strength (Leanne, 2009). From his first day in office, Obama recognized a range of diversity and used it to expand network and innovation. Obama focused on building bridges on common political, economic, and social ground. Business leaders can draw the same practice to improve their performance and overall production.
The last part of the book deals with building on an enabling team and solidifying a winning culture. Today, technology plays a crucial role in the success of every leader. Leaders across all fields need to make technology their friends. Upon selecting a capable team and excellent partners, the next step is to capitalize on the habit of using two-way-technology. Leanne explains the importance of embracing technology and customer relations management in achieving the set goals and organizational visions. The adoption of emerging technology in business helps leaders to keep ana eye on the end goal while enhancing internal capabilities. Another critical strategy for building on an enabling team and solidifying a winning culture is by motivating the target group and organizing the team to work towards success (Leanne, 2009). Leaders always need to recognize potential of the future generation. The success of Obama's leadership was contributed by his ability to identify special interest, pinpoint primary tasks, and motivating inner power. Leaders in modern society need to invest in training employees to keep them up-to-date with advanced technology. Lastly, leaders face various controversies that they need to overcome to achieve the set goals and strategies. In the face of controversies, leaders need to grab the bull by its horns and stand firm while delivering tough messages to protect the company. Obama managed to solve most of the controversies faced by his ability to demonstrate humility, which enabled him to handle different opposing situations successfully.
In summary, the book shows the well planned and meticulously honed leadership strategies employed by President Obama. The book examines leadership skills of an extraordinary leader among them communicating vision, creating a "reservoir of goodwill," form and lead an outstanding team, harness, and leverage the power of technology, establishing trust and confidence, and importance of building bridges among diversity. Adoption of these leadership skills demonstrated by Obama will help business leaders move their business to a higher level of performance and success.
Reference
Leanne, S. (2009). Leadership the Barack Obama Way: Lessons on Teambuilding and Creating a Winning Culture in Challenging Times . Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
