Barack Obama

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. "
"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress."

About

Barack Obama is the 44th and current president of the United States. He was a civil-rights lawyer and teacher before pursuing a political career. In 1996, he was elected to the Illinois State Senate and he became the president of United States in 2008. 

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000.

In his political reign, Obama ended U.S. military involvement in the Iraq War, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. military involvement in Libya, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.

Leadership traits

Integrity

Obama is the man who has the courage to do what is best for his people, and not to compromise because it provides him with some short-term gain. He is willing to risk losing the election because he would not compromise his values, and thus he has been chosen to lead his citizens in the United States.

Humility

Before being elected as the 2008 Democratic Candidate for President, Obama supported diplomacy as the first measure to be taken in response to any suspicious activity. In particular, Obama supported the re-initiation of diplomatic action with Iran. He opposed the bill that would regard the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group, thereby allowing the president to position troops in Iran that could be interpreted as military action against the Iranians. This shows the humility aspect of Obama being respectful of every organization irregardless of their background.

Fairness

Obama believes that fairness is an especially important trait for a successful leader in which one must treat everyone with equality, regardless of race, gender or social status. In whatever decisions that Obama has ever tried to implement, he always ensure that it is a win-win situation for all involved parties.

Caring

One of the most difficult tasks that any world leader may face is, balancing time with their two major obligations; the population that they are leading and their actual family. There is no hiding to the fact of the strong bonds between the members of the Obama family; the family reserves time for a sit-down dinnertime every night. Obama is certainly a family man as he is seen in public all of the time with his loving family.

Additionally, Barack Obama is committed to creating universal health care in America.  This shows that the health of the individual American is one of his top priorities.

Inspirational

Obama knows the true meaning of leadership which is to encourage the American people to act for a common purpose because they want to. Here is a phrase that Obama used in one of his speeches:

"Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin the work of remaking America".

He has certainly held true to his word on this quote. To help to alleviate the recession, he has spent more money in his first sixty days of presidency than in an entire term of any other president. Obama has not just talked about plans of rebuilding America but has acted on them. Americans are gradually investing more and more trust in their government as each crisis is being dealt with and this is proven when he was able to inspire followers to continue believing in him which resulted in his successful re-election as the president of United States.

Mindful Decision Making

A deliberate decision of Obama was to surround himself with people that do not necessarily agree with his views. This way, he will be able to gain different valuable opinions on difficult issues.  If his cabinet were to contain people that constantly agree with him, he could make purely 'Obama' choices all of the time, and the right decision might not always be made - nobody's perfect.

Barack Obama has shown his decisiveness through the innumerable times he has taken action in just about the sixty days that he has spent in the White House.

Analysis

After looking at several case studies on Obama, we were able to identify some good leadership traits, as stated above, that we can learn from him. Obama is a transformational leader and he focuses a lot on his followers. He often motivates his followers in achieving great achievements and always tries to transform people or organizations for the better. He is also a charismatic and inspirational leader who engages his followers in his beliefs and ideas and this is something that we should possess as a future leader.