Blog about Leadership

I was reading Thomas Friedman’s latest Op-Ed in the New York Times (here); he is one of the few columnists that I follow regularly and I greatly enjoyed his book, The World Is Flat. He wrote about the biggest leverage that America can use in regards to Iran is the transition from an oil consumption economy to a truly green (environment) revolution.

My only critique of the strategy is that it overstates the impact of American oil consumption on Iran and disregards the consumption of other modern economies in Europe and particularly growth economies in India and China. I do agree that a green revolution in America could make significant strides in opening up freedom and reform in the Middle East and that America is still well positioned to lead this green revolution, but a critical requirement is that European and Asian countries must follow suit with their own green revolutions to produce the effect that Thomas Friedman writes about.

Other than this critique, I want to highlight a great quote that is used in this article. The quote is from Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign policy specialist at John Hopkins University:
“People do not change when you tell them they should; they change when they tell themselves they must.”

This is a great quote for leaders. Significant emphasis in leadership studies is the influence that leaders must have to drive change in their organization. This change also involves people. While a leader may seek to influence change, the best tool available is influence; coercion produces negative effects in attitude and motivation that hinder the positive effects of the change. Leaders need to practice the art of leadership to motivate people to change themselves.

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What a monumental week! I don’t think it really matters which political party you belong to or which political ideologies you lean toward, this past week was a monumental week and a huge victory for the American political system. Unless they live under rock, everyone in the world now knows that our President-elect is Barack Obama, the first black man to win the Presidency.

My first thought is that this date will be representing another paradigm shift in the world, not just the US. Perhaps this is influenced by my recently having read Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat and his list of “10 historic dates that made the world flat.” At any rate, it is exciting to see history in the making and participating with an entire nation who is excited about politics which is usually disdained and ignored. There is renewed interest, excitement, and confidence in the future of the United States.

I want to share with you a quote from President-elect Barack Obama about the United States. Back in March when he was attacked for his association with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he gave a speech to the National Constitution Center during the Democratic Primary.

In his speech, he said:
“This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.”

This reflects almost exactly a fundamental belief of mine. We do not live in a perfect world. We do live in a functional society. The goals of a functional society are to strive to implement the attributes of a perfect world.

This week has been one more step closer for all Americans and, hopefully, “a giant leap for mankind.”

***Update - November 19, 2008***

I want to leave this article up for a while, so we can appreciate this moment in time and focus on some of the excitement, hopeful possibilities, and positive visions for America. This is important in my view with most of the news flooding with pessimistic and disheartening information about the economy. So for now, I am merely adding to this article.

Perfection is an important discussion point. What one person considers to be perfection another may view as imperfection with one slant or another. This is particularly true in the interaction of people whether in relationships, organizations, or the broader category of society. For this very reason, any union, whether the United States as Barack Obama was discussing or any other country, can never truly achieve perfection.

We seek then for betterment as agreed by a majority without discrimination of the minority. This betterment is what Barack Obama referred to as “perfected” or what I refer to as implementing attributes of a perfect world. This is not individual goals as much as it is processes - continuous improvement -  in which some goals may play a role.

One fundamental requirement is openness and dialog on matters of society whether economic or political. My grandfather use to tell me that there are three things you never discuss at the dinner table – politics, money, and sex. While it may be fine to have a time and place for these discussions while not at a dinner table, too many families abstain from these topics all together.

The excitement of the last year with this monumental Presidential election has helped to elevate the level of dialog in matter of politics. Too often, this increased level of dialog was negative or counter-productive as too often the dialog was a matter of two conversations – the election is lasting too long (it just kept going and going…) or the discussion was highly divisive (either within the Democrat Party between supports of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton or between the broad electorate between supports of Barack Obama and John McCain).

What is necessary to continue “perfecting” this union, is to elevate the dialog and have honest, open, respectful, and intelligent conversations about the issues this nation’s faces.

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