The wife and I were watching the news the other night as Barack Obama gave his 14th consecutive press conference, when it dawned on me, somewhat shockingly, that he isn’t yet the president. Sure looks the part, sounds the part, and acts the part.
So does that mean he is a good leader so far? Yes, and in fact business managers could learn a lot by studying how Obama is orchestrating the transition, say experts quoted in a recent Reuter’s article. Management consultant Paul Reagan calls the Obama performance “masterful.”
Here’s what’s the experts like in the president-elect:
- A clear value system, articulated repeatedly.
- High credibility that he will do what he says.
- Acute awareness of his own strengths and weaknesses, as witnessed by his Cabinet nominations.
Where’s the Change?
Any shortcomings so far in the Obama management style?
“He may have oversold change,” Reagan says. “If there is a vulnerability, it will be in a lack of clarity or, because it was so general, an inability to make good on what everyone interpreted was something for them.”
“The jury is still out,” says Nancy Koehn, a business historian and professor at Harvard Business School, who is waiting for the real test of the Oval Office.
Read the story for more interesting observations and see if you agree that all managers could learn a thing or two from the next president.
On the topic, here are two interesting statistics rooted out by my BNET colleague Peter Galuszka:
- Workers in a recent poll said Obama would make a better boss than John McCain by a count of 54 percent to 46 percent.
- Chief executives favored McCain to Obama by 4 to 1.
