– leaders as managers
I admit. I concede that I’m dabbling in areas best left to others. Additionally, the election, then the current transition period, with potential international world leader Barack Obama, is getting maximum daily attention and treatment from the world’s media.
So permit me to intrude. But what’s with my caption “Obama and Fenty”? Fenty? Read on.
It’s now a given that Mr Obama’s achievement will be legend in the USA’s socio-political history, when that is recorded decades from today. He himself is a revelation of a former enigma. His life-story is, so far very familiar but far from over. Even as he is right now catapulting the transition into a kind of parallel presidency, he is demonstrating that he will be in charge. And absolutely accountable in terms of where the proverbial – and actual (?) – Buck stops.
Last Tuesday evening, at our usual “beverage table debate”, just before I wondered aloud whether Obama will be both leader and manager, I repeated my now two personal well-known trivia, I harbour: the usual first one is that I’ll go to my grave resenting just how effective and almost absolute Caucasian people – especially “White Americans” – have been in defining mixed races as “Black” never White. When one parent only is White you’re not White. Who says so!? Sadly, even the mixed products themselves. How sad. (If I am douglah, Alicia Keys is Mulatto…)
The second trivia puzzled one or two of the follows. I say that Barack is not a direct product of Black American slavery. After all, his Kansas mother was a free person and his Kenyan/African father was quite a proud free citizen of a powerful continent. Agreed? But let me quote someone on Leaders and Managers.
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LEADERS, PRESIDENTS AS MANAGERS
Both Obamas – father and son – attended the prestigious University of Harvard. I have to agree with the observations of a Distinguished Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Joseph Nye, with respect to why leaders, including Presidents, should be shrewd, skilful managers.
I quote a few points of his, liberally:
“While legislators have many leadership skills, their management ability is usually unproven. Senators manage a roughly 100-member staff, and a campaign staff of several hundreds.
Contemporary management theory tends to distinguish between leadership and management, and places greater emphasis on leaders. Managers are described as those who merely embrace processes and seek stability, while leaders tolerate risk and create change. Organisations need both: but leaders are more important. As one expert puts it, a guiding coalition with good managers but poor leaders will not succeed. Good leaders construct teams that combine these functions, making sure to hire subordinates who can compensate for the leader’s managerial deficiencies.
More recently, there has been renewed interest in leaders as managers. After all, vision without implementation is ineffective. Leaders need enough managerial skill to assure that systems are in place to provide the information required for good decisions as well as effective implementation. An effective leader manages and shapes the context of decisions by creating and maintaining well-designed systems.
Organisational skill is the ability to manage the structures, information flows, and reward systems of an institution or group. Leaders directly manage those who report to them, and they manage indirectly by establishing and maintaining systems for their institutions. This includes the encouragement of leadership at lower levels in their organisations.
Good leaders must manage their inner circle of advisers to ensure an accurate flow of information and influence. They must avoid the “emperor’s trap” of hearing only about the beauty of their new clothes.
Ironically, George W. Bush the first President with an MBA was weaker on this dimension than his father who knew how to manage an able group of advisers”.
Professor Nye goes on to compare the management styles of American Presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses in terms of his own criteria. He wonders about Barack Obama’s management skills – especially as they relate to the brilliant, high profile brains and personalities he, Obama, is surrounding himself with.
Well, even a layman like me, could discern confidence, know-how and an ability to listen and identify good, effective advice, as Obama superintended his campaign into unchartered territory and as he assembles his executive teams. Time will tell – swiftly. Given the woes he will inherit on January 20 next.
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Meet Mr A Fenty!
Now even as I admire Barack Obama’s business-like, no-nonsense approach to his transition and the fact that he doesn’t even mention any grand inauguration, I would love to be somewhere in Washington DC on January 20 when a mulatto person becomes a most powerful leader.
It is anticipated to be the most memorable inauguration of an American President in recent times. For all sorts of reasons, four to five million persons, it is predicted, will be in the American Federal Capital for the momentous event. I wonder if Adrian Fenty can assist me if I get to Washington?
Mr Adrian Fenty became Washington, DC’s youngest Mayor and is still not forty. Reportedly he had to be a most adroit Democrat in 2006 when he secured the Democratic nomination to be Mayor, eventually triumphing over much more seasoned incumbents and their influential supporters. Sounds familiar? Well research this other rising political star whose city will host the most challenging ceremony in January.
Will my Surname influence him to host me too? (I can dream, can’t I?) And just suppose Robyn Rihanna Fenty is invited to perform at the Premier Inauguration Ball!? The Fentys and I will be in town!
I know these bits of trivia really do not matter, but guess what? Mayor Adrian Fenty is himself mixed and he too met his wife Michelle, at Law School! See you in Washington DC in January.
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UNTIL …
1) My two Friday wishes: that Georgetown’s Stabroek Square will be made orderly – but who’s to enforce order? Just a dream and wish, I guess. (Prove me wrong). And I wish that a non-PPP member replaces Minister Jeffrey when the time comes. (More dreams?)
2) Hardened prisoners should be made to do productive community service. Produce for self-sufficiency and sale.
3) Football’s Klass – an eternal survivalist?
’Til next week
(Comments? allanfenty@yahoo.com)
