Introduction
Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born in Kenya to Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, who was born on a World War II Army base in Kansas. After using the G.I. Bill for their schooling and the FHA’s First Time Homebuyers Program to buy their first house, the couple moved to Hawaii. His father left soon after he was born, and his mother and stepfather divorced two years later. Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro in 1965. Dunham worried for Obama’s safety and education after incidents in Indonesia (Rich, 2018). When he was 10, she sent him to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. While living with his grandparents, Obama attended Punahou. He was a superb basketball player and a top student when he graduated in 1979. As one of just three Black students, he learned about racism and being African American.
Obama entered Occidental College in 1979. After two years, he attended Columbia University in New York City to study political science. Harvard Law School graded him A+ in 1991. After graduating from Columbia, Obama worked for two years. In 1985, he became a community organizer for Roseland and Altgeld Gardens on Chicago’s South Side. Barack attended Trinity United Church of Christ after saying he “wasn’t reared religiously.” In Kenya, he visited his extended family and his father’s tomb, who died in a 1982 car accident (Rich, 2018). Obama returned to Harvard Law School after his stint in Kenya (1988). Obama became the first black Harvard Law Review editor in 1990.
Obama met Michelle Robinson at the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin. They started dating quickly, and in 1992, they married. They moved to Chicago’s Kenwood area. Barack and Michelle Obama have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. After law school, Obama was a civil rights lawyer with Miner, Barnhill & Galland (Rich, 2018). From 1992 through 2004, he lectured and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Obama ran for Illinois State Senate in 1996 after becoming politically active; he worked with Democrats and Republicans as a state legislator to enhance health care and early childhood education for low-income families. He also increased low-wage workers’ take-home earnings by creating a state tax credit. Barack lost the 2000 Democratic primary to incumbent Bobby Rush. In 2002, he started fundraising for a 2004 Senate race in the U.S. David Axelrod helped Obama evaluate his Senate chances. He ran for Peter Fitzgerald’s Senate seat in the 2004 Democratic primary and won the election with 52% of the vote, defeating Blair Hull and Daniel Hynes (Rich, 2018). He was asked to give John Kerry’s keynote talk at the 2004 DNC in Boston. Obama obliquely referenced Bush administration actions and wedge subjects while encouraging togetherness.
After the convention, Obama campaigned throughout Illinois. Jack Ryan, the Republican primary winner, was to be his general election opponent. Actress Jeri Ryan accused her ex-husband of sexual deviancy, then quit the 2004 campaign. Alan Keyes, a diplomat and one-time presidential candidate, replaced Ryan in 2004 (Rich, 2018). Obama and Keyes debated embryonic stem cell research, abortion, gun control, school vouchers, and tax reduction. Obama won the Illinois primary with a record 70% of the vote against Keyes’ 27%.
In February 2008, Obama announced he would seek the Democratic presidential candidacy. He ran against the former first lady and New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. After the primaries, Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee on June 3, 2008. Clinton supported Obama’s candidacy. Obama became the 44th president of the United States on November 4, 2008, when he beat John McCain 52.9% to 45.7% (Rich, 2018). His inauguration was on January 20, 2009. The global economy was in a recession; there were two ongoing conflicts, and the US had its lowest-ever favorability rating. He campaigned on a program that included decreasing the national debt, restructuring the financial sector, and creating renewable energy sources. President Obama’s re-election campaign stressed local projects, like in 2008. Romney and Ryan ran against Obama in 2012. Obama won more than 60% of the Electoral College on election day, giving him a second four-year term as president.
Leadership Qualities and Styles of Barack Obama
One way to categorize a leader is by the function he or she serves for the group he or she leads. Interpersonal leadership, informational leadership, and decision-making leadership are the different types. According to this analysis, Barack Obama’s leadership position included elements of all three categories. He was a public face for the country, hosting state dinners and signing the legislation. He represented the White House to the public and laid out his plans and policies for voters as president (Rich, 2018). At the White House, he took on the role of entrepreneur and negotiator, helping to craft new healthcare policy with Obamacare, new renewable energy policy with the Paris Climate Agreement, and new international accords with the Iran Nuclear Deal. The leadership personality characteristic argument suggests that Obama has been successful as president because of his domineering and high-energy demeanor, which has inspired his staff and supporters to work tirelessly to implement his policy agenda.
He is optimistic about the future and focused on resolving the country’s most pressing problems, such as healthcare and tax reform since he has a strong sense of self-confidence and an internal locus of control. McClelland’s Leader Motive Profile (LMP) Theory and the Big Five Personality Test show that influential leaders have a modest need for achievement, rely on socialized power to influence followers, and value connection less than power. According to LMP, Obama possesses an abundance of the qualities necessary to serve as a strong leader (Rich, 2018). Due to his understanding that the Presidency was a position of public service and not personal power, he did not feel a strong drive for success. His great sense of urgency and capacity to change with the situation make him a responsible leader.
Barack Obama was a leader who attempted to lead through effective communication with his audience, the instillation of hope in the lives of the hopeless, and the adoption of policies and strategies that helped the needy attain their legal rights. For example, the rules and regulations he instituted made it easier for many people to interact with others from other cultural backgrounds (Rich, 2018). Obama’s victory shows that his people valued his leadership qualities beyond intelligence, insight, and empathy.
Barack Obama has demonstrated many qualities that make him successful in his leadership role as a diverse and inclusive national leader. President Obama’s success in leading a diverse group of people may be attributed to three leadership traits. The first thing you should know about him is that he has a magnetic and transformational presence. The best leaders can see what their followers need and want and then motivate their teams to do it. In his twenty-sixth presidential campaign, Barack Obama displayed transformational leadership by advocating for change within the feminist and homosexual communities. This gave hope to people from a wide range of cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses who related to the struggles of these groups (Rich, 2018). He won over Americans of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds with his charisma and affability. His charisma, charm, and revolutionary leadership have been credited with winning the hearts and minds of the American people.
The strategic thinking framework that Barack Obama has put in place may be broken down into its parts and examined from various perspectives. Obama is a creative thinker who took on complex issues, including the economic crisis, healthcare, and foreign policy. To tackle climate change, Obama utilized his critical thinking abilities to sign the Paris Climate Accord, which ensures that the world will rely more on renewable energy sources than fossil fuels in the future. Finally, as a moral leader, Obama ensured that every measure he signed into law resulted from careful consideration and thought (Rich, 2018). When Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Act to bail out the financial sector in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, he took into account the ethical concerns of people from different financial classes. He also included the banks’ utility in giving out loans, and other blind spots to prevent one social class from making expensive financial mistakes.
One may argue that Obama is more of an integrative thinker than a traditional one when evaluating his Presidency. Instead of avoiding creative thought and accepting the country’s state as-is, Obama produced fresh ideas and answers to decade-old problems because of his integrative thinking. He ran for president intending to make America a better place. His decision-making process in developing Obamacare, a complete reform of the United States healthcare system, illustrates his character’s holistic way of thinking (Rich, 2018). Finding what is most important, investigating what factors are at play, creating a mental blueprint of how you will implement your choice, and finally making a call are the four stages of every decision-making process.
In contrast to more traditional modes of thought, Obama was able to incorporate seemingly disparate issues like pre existing illnesses, insurance business models, and healthcare prices into a single policy package. In order to come up with novel solutions for making healthcare accessible for all Americans, he had to learn to embrace ambiguity. Second, Obama had to consider the systemic, multidirectional nature of interactions in the American healthcare system, including those between insurers, hospitals, doctors, businesses, and individuals. Obama viewed the healthcare system as a whole when a traditional leader would have focused exclusively on linear, one-way ties. Third, he conceived of the complete decision architecture by developing novel, small-scale solutions to each problem involving several directions of influence (Rich, 2018). Finally, he attempted to defuse the tension by revising the Affordable Care Act via many rounds of discussion with state governors, senators, and congress people and by listening to competing points of view on the measure.
Self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management comprise Emotional Intelligence’s four pillars. Obama scored very high on emotional intelligence, self-awareness, social skills, and team-building tests. Obama could zoom in not only on the specifics of his team’s work, such as the coordination of each White House cabinet member’s focal area and the strategy-implementation plans, but also on the feelings of his team members and the atmosphere of the group as a whole. Leaders typically avoid having conversations with their teams that reach the primal level for fear of confronting emotional dysfunction and changing harmful norms that may have contributed to it. Obama and his Chief of Staff were the first in the White House to speak the truth when the president noticed his Cabinet was overworked or demotivated because of a measure that was not passed into law (Rich, 2018). Second, Obama’s White House staff was dedicated to him because he constantly expressed his hopes and aspirations for the country in an upbeat, passionate style. Obama assembled a talented group of people because he never hesitated to say what was on his mind.
Conclusion
For eight years, he was in office, and this leader impressed me most with his emotional intelligence, command of various strategic thinking frameworks, and capacity for transformative leadership. For the duration of his administration, Barack Obama was a world leader of transformative stature, one who successfully reduced divisions among different socioeconomic groups, nationalities, and the United States itself. When coming up with new ideas and making judgments for the country, he exuded confidence, had an instinctive internal locus of control, and was an integrative thinker (Rich, 2018). While signing legislation into law, he integrated critical thinking with creative thinking and ethical reasoning to become a strategic thinker.
Finally, he used his high EQ to inspire the White House staff, articulate his daydreams, and grasp the feelings of his colleagues. President Obama’s varied leadership styles allow him to effectively fulfill his constitutional mandates as President of the United Nations General Assembly and the United States Congress. Obama has endeared himself to both native-born citizens and those of other nationalities with his charismatic style of leadership (Rich, 2018). A charismatic leader can inspire followers to put aside their differences and strive towards a shared goal despite the risks this may entail. This strategy may prove revolutionary for those who share the pioneer’s goal. Many individuals have been impressed by his achievements, which may have far-reaching effects on local and international undertakings.
Reference
Rich, W. C. (2018). Who was president Barack Obama? Looking Back on President Barack Obama’s Legacy, 249-257. Web.