Obama: Principles of Leadership
Jack Welch, former head of GE, writes in BusinessWeek that Barack Obama won the presidency on three leadership principles: a clear vision, clean execution, and friends in high places. I would add that Mr. Obama was also consistent in purpose and message, and was not distracted … at least publicly … by vicious attacks.
Those tenets of leadership are going to be tested in coming months as the country struggles to right itself from what can only be termed, a dark time of ineptness and corruption. As Bob Schieffer of CBS News observed this morning, “the country is in a mess.”
Perhaps the first benefit to the country of the Obama win is for the image of the United States around the world … the signal that is sent to friends and foes, alike, that America is a nation of strong and purposeful people who have elected a man whose father came from a village in Kenya and whose mother came from middle-class America … a man who achieved education and stature by working hard … and who, even with a middle name of Hussein, a fact over which he muses, has been elected President. As Mr. Obama said, America “is a place where all things are possible.” What a powerful message that sends to the world.
In the moment of greatness late on election night, as Mr. Obama addressed the nation and the world, all of the feebleness of incompetent attempts during the last eight years to manipulate the image of America seemed to be erased, and we begin with a new light of unity, universality and hope.
Filed Under: Featured • Leadership Principles
About the Author: David is a veteran communications strategist ... writer ... blogger ... online publisher ... and Emmy Award winning former CBS Network News correspondent. He lives in the Washington, D. C., area, and works worldwide.
I hope you are right and Senator and now President Obama is what you think he is although he has no record. I pray he is successful. I also hope he selects people to assist him who have integrity and place country ahead of party.
It is definitely historical and will greatly change the nation for the best no matter what else happens. But that said, a President Obama will find an economy in tatters, with many options closed to him and a world fraught with danger and real enemies. I am not sure he, or the rest of us, comprehends all that awaits the next president. Russia is already testing, and Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and the the elephant in the room, China are lining up. The energy crisis is not just an economic crisis, but indirectly and directly effects US foreign policy. With the Barney Franks of the party already calling for reducing the defense budget by 25%, no I am not kidding, gives me pause as to just how seriously many Democrats take the threats the US and west are truly under at this time. The fact that Obama and others now who will be in control are against nuclear power, coal demonstrate a real lack of understanding just how constrained we are in alternatives and what science can do now and for the next 20 years. I am also concerned about Reid and Pelosi and congress in general. Right now their track record appears more on doing what is best for their colleagues and party not country.
I pray that you are right, as you were so convinced.
A “new light of unity, universality and hope”
I hope you are right. So much depends on it.