Obama –Vs- Johnathan: Presidential Leadership Styles

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie
Published: 23-September-2014

1.      Introduction

In the present business world (just as it was in the past business world), leadership is the determining force that is needed to push businesses up into the market share ownership charts. It is inevitable for any organization. Juts having the right resources and market doesn’t determine success. Businesses need a leader to link the right market with their resources, provide the needs of the market, and as such improve their overall performance (Fleming, 2001; O’Dea & Flin, 2001; McMahon et al., 2006; Conchie & Donald, 2006; Yule et al., 2007). Leadership is both science and art. It is the science (psychology) of understanding what people want and also the art (creativity and innovation) of creating needs to meet such wants. Thus, effective leadership is necessary because it is the measure of how a leader has performed in terms of the impact of the leader’s actions on people around.

In that context, the focus of this research is to analyze two leader (the Presidents of both Nigeria and USA) in terms of their leadership styles and the impact of their leadership styles on people around them. Highlight the most effective leadership style as measured by the level of positive impact of such styles on people, and recommend the best leadership approaches for other leaders to adopt based on their identified leadership styles. The overall idea here is to use retrospective leadership as the measure of their performance.

2.      Analysis and evaluation of the President of Nigeria

Following the death of President Yar’Adua 2010, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan unceeded him as the new President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (BBC News Africa, 2013). He won his first election (as a President) in the midst of opposition claims of fraud (BBC News Africa, 2013). Since 2010, the marks of President Jonathan’s leadership styles are all around the place for Nigerians and the world to behold.

Mr. Jonathan’s time as the vice-president of Nigeria stands out as the distinguishing expression of his leadership capabilities as he successfully negotiated amnesty with the Niger Delta militants (BBC News Africa, 2013). This is a clear demonstration of his charismatic leadership abilities. Charismatic leaders are described as leaders who demonstrate strong ability of persuading or convincing people into becoming their loyal followers (Kelloway & Barling, 2010). Mr. Jonathan demonstrated this ability with his impact on the Niger Delta crisis. Till today, he is still the main reason why there is calm in Niger Delta.

He can also be described as a transactional and transformational leader. As a transactional leader, he has implemented numerous banking policies such as CashLite (which limits the level of daily withdrawals and deposits in Nigeria banks), and charged ministries to be more accountable with the recent case of dismissal of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (Lamido Sanusi Lamido, the present Emir of Kano, now Mohammadu Sanusi II) setting his records straight as a no-nonsense leader when it comes to transactional businesses. He has also transformed the Nigerian economy by making it Africa’s biggest economy under his leadership.

While he has been successful with economic transformation and calming of militant activities in the Niger Delta, Okey Ndibe (2014), Aljazeera reporter for Nigeria was focused on the recent abduction of school girls and on-going terrorist activities in Nigeria when he said that: “the abduction saga has successfully exposed the highest degree of Nigeria’s politicians to competent govern the system – and his is a sin that Jonathan should be blamed for solely.” In essence, the reporter was pointing Mr. Johnathan’s low level of empathy and authenticity as a Nigerian president. As a further support, the kidnapped girls are yet to be released. 

3.      Analysis and evaluation of President Barack Obama of USA

When compared with the Nigerian president, understanding the leadership styles of the American president has been made easy by the work of Stephen (2010), a Professor of Government at the Georgetown University in Washington DC, who provided a comprehensive discussion of Barack Obama’s leadership style.

The Professor made known that the leadership style of Barack Obama is influenced by his legal training and he thinks based on rigor, logic and rational structure. The President does whatever possible to avoid his policy judgment and reaction to people or events being influenced by his emotions. As a fact, the President normally keeps his emotions far from public view. Even in his present world, Stephens (2010) describes him as being little embarrassed with his own revelation of is his teen and adult behavior in his book titled Dreams From My Father, as he attributes those youthful actions to be an outcome of is mixed racial background and an excess youthful hormones.

He is a very retrospective figure who believes very much in overshadowing the wrongs of other people with his own good, and he is very cautious of how he responds to public opinions. For instance, when he was asked why he took several days to respondent to the bonuses that was given to top executives by AIG, a company that needed to borrow $173 billion from the government in order to survive, he responded by saying that: “we took couple of days because I do like to know what I am talking before speaking.”

Obama can be described as a highly authentic, charismatic and emphatic leader who does whatever it takes just to lead at the interest of the people instead of personal gains. For instance, he took numerous months and consultation with different bodies, agencies, and personalities within the ranks of the US government before arriving at the decision to send 30,000 additional troupes to Afghanistan (Stephens, 2010). Even when the decision was finally reaches, it was based on unanimity among his senior advisers before he could make a public statement on such decision. However, once he makes a decision, he normally sticks to it without bulging under pressure and he takes necessary steps towards explaining his decision not to change from policies to the general public.

4.      Comparison of the leaders

Table 1: comparison of the two presidents

Leadership styles	Jonathan	Obama
Transactional	He believes much in the importance of delivering value on whatever assignment that people are assigned to and he has demonstrated such believe by removing underperforming government officials from their seats.	Just like every other American President, he is very transactional and focuses more on the outcome of his actions.
Transformational	Under his leadership, the Nigerian economy grew to become the largest in Africa, and as such he can be said to be very transformational.	There are few transformational records in his belt. What he has done is more of ensuring sustainability in what the USA has.
Charismatic	He was able to talk the Niger Delta into amnesty, and as such he can be described as a charismatic leader.	He is very charismatic as he tales necessary steps to understand the needs of the public, make policies designed to solve these ends and gain the public’s loyally.
Emphatic	He is not an emphatic leader as Aljazeera reporter descried him because his response to abducted girls is too slow and the girls are yet to be released till date.	He is very emphatic as he is more focused on delivering what the people want. This is demonstrated in his decision to send 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan in order to help the endangered nation.
Authentic	Based on his emphatic level of leadership, he can be said to be unauthentic as a leader because his decisions are not made for the best interest of the public.	He is an authentic leader because he makes decisions for the best interest of the public.
Level of flexibility	He is not flexible in decision making process or on agreed decisions.	He is flexible in decision making process, but sticks on agreed decisions.
Retrospective	He is not a retrospective leader as his interested is not to over perform past leaders but to leave his own legacy.	He is a retrospective leader because he does whatever necessary to address wrongs from past government.

Source: as summarized from: BBC News Africa (2013), Okey (2014), and Stephens (2010).

5.      Summary of significant findings and perspectives from journal entries

From the first week, I learned that leaders are not visionaries. They are more focused on transforming envisioned projects into reality.

Week 2 pointed out the need to understand the qualities of leaders because through such understanding, their future performance can be measured in terms of how they will likely deliver in the leadership process.

Week 3 made known that in the leader-follower relationship, it all begins with the leader directing the follower on what to do, coaching the follower on underperforming areas, supporting the follower as necessary in order to improve, and finally delegating the follower once all necessary skills have been acquired.

Charismatic leadership is key to loyalty of follower because the follower have strong believe that they owe the leader a payback for his or her good deeds, and as such are willing to do whatever makes the leader happy. In essence, charismatic leadership is good for team facilitation.

As an authentic leader, the week 5 discussion pointed out the need to always be rigid and focus on greed decisions because this is the only way to avoid leadership processes that are discriminatory in nature.

Ethical leaders as discussed in the week 6 are not ethical because of the need for the organization to care, but because it is important that necessary care be delivered to follower. As such, they are careful about the impact of their decisions on the lives of people around them.

Differences in culture can influence the leadership style (for instance, US president is more likely to seek public opinion than China’s president because of the level of power distance in both countries), and training and development is keep to effective leadership because it equips leaders with necessary skills required to effect the leadership process in time. These are major findings from weeks 7 and 8 respectively.

6.      Analysis and evaluation of journal entries to chosen leaders

From the above discussions, it is now clear that the support for Obama’s administrations due to his level of authenticity and charismatic leadership. He takes time to understand what the public needs and deliver such needs as opposed to president Johnathan.

However, these differences in leadership style can be attributed to cultural influence. This is because USA is a true democratic nation, with leaders being very retrospective about their leadership style and the low level of power distance means that actions of leaders can be questioned and criticized. Thus, American presidents are always careful. This is very different from Nigeria with high level of power distance, which means that te president is less concerned about the influence of his action on the public.

7.      Conclusion

Leadership is not an easy thing, but leaders should aspire to be authentic, charismatic, ethical, moral, and emphatic. This is because the general purpose of leadership is to delivery good deeds to the general public. Thus, leaders must make sure that the outcome of their actions are positive on the lives of people.

8.      Appendix

8.1. Journal entries

8.1.1.      Week 1: leadership is the future of strategy

With the course started, there was always questions in my mind as to how this course will be conducted and what I will learn from it. The first week started by answering some of such questions. From the discussions, I learned that it is not always about having the right strategy of what one aims to achieve that matter, instead having the right leaders that can make such strategic transformation is necessary. Leaders are not visionaries. They are just focused on transforming envisioned projects into realty and that is what I learnt.

8.1.2.      Week 2: what makes a good leader?

In any given organization or system, failures are always attributed to the leader. However, I learned in this week’s discussion that the blames should not just go to the leaders, but also to the management that made them leader. This is because there are a number of factors that influence failure in the leadership process. The two most significant are either the leader is not the right person for the job, or the leader was not provided with the right tool to succeed. As such, I learned that it is important to understand the quality of a leader in order to ensure that the person being selected is right for the leadership process.

8.1.3.      Week 3: four types of leadership

This week’s discussion enlightened me with the four types of leadership styles as directing, coaching, supporting and delegating. Such enlightenment made me to understand what my manager has been doing right from my early working days to the present moment. For instance, I have understood from this week discussion that my manager started by first directing me on what to do, coaching me on areas are bad in, supporting me with necessary ideas to improve and then delegating me once I have improved.

8.1.4.      Week 4: Charisma is the key to team facilitation

Leaders can face difficulties with having the full loyalty of supporters, but this week’s discussion have made me to understand that charismatic leadership is the answer to such difficulties. This is because charismatic leaders are doers of what they preach. They are capable of making their follower their long-term friends. Unlike transformational and transactional leader that focus on delivering as required, charismatic leader focus on delivering supposed. As such, their follower have strong feeling that they owe them payback and are willing to be loyal to such leaders.

8.1.5.      Week 5: Authentic leaders

This week’s discussions and readings made me to understand that authentic leaders are morally and ethically responsible people. This is because they do whatever possible to ensure that the outcome of their leadership process has positive impact on the people they lead. Overall, they are focused on delivering the needs of the public and not personal gains. However, they can also be influenced by in-use theory as against espoused theory. This is the overall learning this week.

8.1.6.      Week 6: ethics has a huge positive impact on leaders

The overall discovery I made from this week’s reading and discussions is that ethical leaders are not so because of the need and responsibilities of the organization to care, but because of their true identify as caring people. Even outside the organization, they are still ethical and ensure that the outcome of their decision doesn’t have negative influence on the lives of people around them. They are very much focused and reflective on the outcomes of their decision.

8.1.7.      Week 7: Are cultural dimensions outdated?

In this week’s discussions, I learned that some of the cultural dimensions are outdated because increased globalization now means that there are global standards in terms of some cultural view. For instance, the case of Nigeria as demonstrated by Hofstede who described Nigeria a collectivist society is wrong (especially in my tribe ibo). We are very individualistic in nature presently, but stories have it that my forefathers used to be collective in nature. As such, the dimension developed 30 year ago, while it served the purpose then, doesn’t reflect what is presently obtainable.

8.1.8.      Week 8: Effective leadership is made possible through training

This final week rounds up all discussions but it still presented me with new ideas. This is idea is that it is important to train leader because training does bring about effectiveness in the leadership process.

9.      References

BBC News Africa (2013). Profile: Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12192152 [Accessed on: 8th of July, 2014].

Conchie, S. M. and Donald, I. J. (2006). The role of distrust in offshore safety performance. Risk Analysis, 26 (5), 1151-1159.

Fleming, M. (2001). Effective supervisory safety leadership behaviours in the offshore oil and gas industry. HSE Offshore Technology Report 1999/065. London: HSE Books. http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/otopdf/1999/oto99065.pdf.

Kelloway, E. K. and Barling, J. (2010). Leadership development as an intervention in occupational health psychology. Work & Stress, 24 (3), 260-279.

McMahon, A., Shaw, J., Cash, B., Wright, M., and Antonelli, A. (2006). Case studies that identify and exemplify Boards of Directors who provide leadership and direction on occupational health and safety. HSE Research Report 499. London: HSE Books. http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr499.pdf

O’Dea, A. and Flin, R. (2001). Site managers and safety leadership in the offshore oil and gas industry. Safety Science, 37 (1), 39-57.

Okey Ndibe (2014), “Boko Haram exploits Nigeria’s leadership deficit.” Available at: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/5/boko-haram-nigeriachibokgirlsgoodluckjonathanelection.html [Accessed on: 8th of July, 2014].

Stephens, J.W. (2010). “The Impact of Personality on Performance: Barack Obama in the Presidency.” Available at: http://www.american.edu/spa/ccps/upload/aus-wayne-paper.pdf [Accessed on: 8th of July, 2014].

Yule, S., Flin, R. and Murdy, A. (2007). The role of management and safety climate in preventive risk-taking at work. International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, 7 (2), 137-151.