In the last eQ blog, we suggested that one way to hone your expertise is to study those whom you consider experts and learn from them and their ways.
It just so happens that a momentous learning opportunity presented itself late Sunday night when arguably the world’s most powerful leader announced the demise of the world’s most wanted terrorist. At 11:35 pm EST, President Barack Obama broke the news from The White House that the United States had successfully conducted a special operation that killed Osama Bin Laden.
Now we at eQ are not going to get political here. However for an objective purpose strictly focused on leadership qualities, it’s important to assess an expert like Barack Obama. After all, whether you like him or not, he did manage to work his way up to the highest office in the land and that has to stand for something.
What we are going to do is cite one exemplary action of the President’s leadership capabilities in handling this earth-shattering event and then cite one area where we think Obama could use some improvement.
So first, the good. eQ sincerely salutes the Commander in Chief for making the tough calls he undoubtedly had to make. Even if every single detail was perfectly in place, there are still lives on the line in each military mission and this particular one was extremely dangerous. A leader makes the necessary decisions that no one wants to make. A leader does what he or she knows to be right even in the face of harsh criticism from opponents on either side of the spectrum. A leader does not deliberate a moment too long but carries out action as swiftly as possible and then moves on so that we can follow him or her into a better future.
Onto the bad, a leader sounds more than a bit awkward using so many references of “I” and “my” when delivering the news of an international triumph - especially when this leader was part of an enormous task force of individuals including some who were so dedicated that they were willing to die for the cause. Not to mention when this leader represents the voice of an entire nation of people. Reading the transcript or viewing the video of President Obama’s speech on Sunday night (which is available at this link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead) came across as a little arrogant to a lot of people. We’re not saying that he didn’t have a right to talk about himself because a Commander in Chief is ultimately in charge but it would have sounded more gracious to the whole team behind him – especially the elite and courageous members of Seal Team Six – if he had shared the credit more verbally at that time in the spotlight when all the world was watching him. It was a wonderful chance he had to further heal a community still wounded from September 11th and further unite the political divides that ensued, which he did do at the end of his speech but it would have been a lot more effective without the prominent use of first person praise before that.
So in summary, if there's one lesson we aspiring experts of our fields can learn from the past few days is that a great leader takes responsibility without any hesitation and then shares credit without any claim.
We hope you will feel free to post your opinions, whatever they may be, on President Obama's speech and leadership qualities in the comment section below.
Joe Mechlinski is the President of entreQuest and has partnered with countless leaders to effectively improve their team’s performance, their clients’ experience, and their company’s profits.
