Re: Townhall.com – 2/24/2009 – “The Presidency as a Series of Tele-Prompter Speeches” – Michael McBride

Although there are some basic principles of leadership that are beneficial to all leaders, some of the attributes of successful leaders are personal --- what works best for one person doesn’t necessarily work best for another. And the demands of leadership are different depending on situations --- leadership under great uncertainty requires different skills that are unnecessary or even counterproductive when little uncertainty exists and leading a small group (say 5 people) is different from leading a moderate group (say 50 people) is different from leading a large group (say 5000 people) is different from leading an entire nation.

Leadership by example is always a beneficial skill for leaders. For small to medium sized groups, direct but unthreatening demonstration of lower level job skills to workers one-on-one is a marvelous leadership skill. But for larger groups, such one-on-one demonstrations with each worker are impossible, and leadership by example consists mainly of demonstrating more abstract personal abilities such as dedication, honesty, intelligence, the ability to listen to and understand the problems and needs of others, etc, skills that of course are beneficial to small group leadership as well.

Like it or not, Joe the plumber (or 5 or 10 Joes) is not the only constituency of the President of the United States. The President leads hundreds of millions of Joes, some plumbers, some electricians, some file clerks, and, for that matter, some bank robbers and investment swindlers. Personally leading each and every Joe is not a feasible basis of Presidential leadership. But the President more directly leads politicians, bureaucrats, and all sorts of technical wonks, and demonstrating his competence in these areas is not only possible but hugely beneficial.

If McBride prefers leadership by one-on-one example, I suggest he stay out of politics or get used to doing things he doesn’t like to do. If McBride likes to speak without tele-prompter, I suggest he not speak where millions are listening to each and every word he says and world wide every word in and out of context will be analyzed and discussed, and where a single misspoken word could bring the world to the brink of war or financial crisis.

We all can disagree on Obama’s abilities as a leader, and we can all be correct in at least one way; no one can be a successful leader of all the people. Successful leadership requires a lot more people follow than oppose the leader’s leadership. Right now Obama’s got me and a majority of US citizens as followers --- he seems to me to have as good an understanding of the issues that face us all, as good ideas as anyone in how to approach our current problems, a lot more commitment to his ideas than most other leaders in the public arenas, and sufficient intelligence to execute his ideas, all to a much greater extent than the administration that preceded him. I guess McBride feels differently. But if McBride thinks his feelings about Obama’s leadership are based on inescapable conclusions based on principles of leadership, then McBride doesn’t understand leadership in spite of whatever personal success he may have had as a leader himself. And at this point in time, McBride’s opinion of Obama is a minority opinion, even a minority among successful leaders.