Obama’s “Yes We Can” Leadership Elements– Self-Efficacy and Community Organization

Psychologist Albert Bandura, the father of Social Learning Theory in 1977, defined self-efficacy as our belief in our ability to succeed in specific situations. The concept of self-efficacy emphasizes the role of observational learning through modeling and social experience in the development of personality. So how did Obama develop his high self-efficacy? 

On Becoming A leader –Learn to Deliver WOW Presentations

How many presentatiotations and lectures have you heard? Probably in the thousands.  Of these presentations how many presenters had the “wow” factor or were truly outstanding?  I’ve asked my students and seminar audiences this question for many years.  Their answer is that you can count extraordinary presentations and speeches on one hand.  The critical question becomes—What makes these speakers so extraordinary?

Decision-Making and Risk Taking for Obama’s “Yes We Can” Leadership

According to Dr. Warren Bennis, leadership is all about making more effective decisions. Decision making takes rational assessment of the situation, gathering as much information as possible, identifying and agreeing on the problem to be solved, weighting the pros and cons of alternatives, calculating the possible outcomes (unintended and intended consequences), measuring the risks and then deciding. Leadership decisions often strike out in new directions that can define our nation’s reputation and identity, perceived power, and progress toward our dreams for a better country individually and in a collective sense.

The Challenge of Obama’s “Yes We Can” Leadership: Building Credibility

When it comes to leadership–Is credibility the foundation of leader-follower relationship? According to the research done over thirty-five years by James Kouzes and Barry Posner, who wrote two historic books on leadership The Leadership Challenge and Credibility: How Leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it. I am going to focus on what is credibility and how do you establish it ?  

Obama’s “Yes We Can” Leadership Challenge– Building Trust

 

1. “Trust knows no limits–trusting opens the doorways to the spirit…Trust begets trust and fear escalates fear”.  Jack R. Gibb
2.  Trust is the foundation of ” Yes We Can” leadership. Trust is built by doing what you say you will do (dwysywd), showing respect for all, openness, credibility, honesty and communicating the truth to others and your self.  Without trust, leadership efforts are generally not successful.  How do we build trust? I believe that trust develops from the way we treat people and how people respond to and relate to each other. In fact most research indicates that trust can be build in systematic and deliberate ways.  The four most important trust behaviors are:
3.  1. Showing respecting to others– listening and acknowledge their contributions, points of view, skills/talents. Speak directly, do not put people down through criticism or sarcasm and learn to disagree in a pleasant and non-judgmental ways.
4. 2. Openness– being personal by self-disclosing and sharing with people information, feelings and points of view. When interacting using two-way communication techniques questioning, clarifying, demonstrating understanding through restatement and /reflecting and responding to request and bids for contact and attention.
5. 3. DWYSYWD- keep your promises by communicating often and doing what you say you will do.
6. 4. Being present when others speak. Encourage involvement of others in opportunity finding and problem solving.
7. Trust is more than confidence. One dictionary tells us that trust implies instinctive, unquestioning belief in and reliance upon someone or something. Confidence implies conscious trust because of good reasons, definite evidence, fact-based data or past experience.  Confidence is cerebral, more planned and based on expectations than trust. Trust is more intuitive and instinctive, it is spontaneous and more freely given. So ask yourself:  What is trust?  How do you know, when it is present? When broken how do you repair the damage? How can Obama restore trust to government?
8. Let’s talk about how fear stops open interaction and discourse and arouses the defenses. When I am fearful I direct my energies not into discovering and creating, but toward protecting myself from seen, expected, or disaster fantasies or dangers. I am not sure of who I am, cover up and put on protective masks, become concerned about how I ought to meet the expectations of others, and find it difficult to be myself and openly interact with others. Trust enriches my experience; fear robs it. When Obama smiles he seems to be reaching out and connecting to a friendly world he knows and has experienced and he expects recporicity and acceptance. To me he is transparent, open, ready to be engaged. He seems to be saying he will trust me in his world. In my very best moments, I feel inside the way he seems to be when he is smiling at us. Trusting, calm, confident and full of life.  Obama and other government officials can boost their odds of harnessing the power of trust and collective action by using the right tactics, such as emphasizing two-way communication with Republicans. For example, having a bi-partison dinner for John McCain or inviting the Republican caucus to explain the “stimulus package”.

 

Obama Message revisited–Strong but Sobering Rhetoric

As I stood on the lawn to the left side of the Capitol in the yellow ticket section, I waited in anticipation of the swearing in. Roberts fumbled and they tried again. Got it done. Historic moment!

Obama took a deep breath and started his speech.   After a few minutes I was feeling a little let down as he rattled off the troubles we are facing  after Bush played “Nero” and watched our economy go up in flames. This speech was a wake-up call from Obama. Not uplifting, but certainly a sobering list of the problems we need to tackle with transparency and smart solutions. The list was overwhelming and the challenges daunting.

We know that political leaders from Cicero on through Lincoln to Ronald Reagan used rhetorical effectiveness to inspire and motivate people to follow their imperatives and agenda for change. Leaders mobilize others with their ideas, insights, words, presence and delivery of speeches. The way people speak and deliver words of praise and concern reveals their values, beliefs, mental priorities, and philosophy of life. Did Obama read the audience and moment correctly or did he miss an opportunity to inspire?

Obama’s Message for the Inauguration: Renewal through Action.

The transformation begins it is January 17, 2009 at 10:19 at the 30rd street train station in Philadelphia. Obama has just arrived to start the Obama Express to Washington, D.C.  The “Yes We Can” era begins. He begins by talking about the founding fathers courage and risk to defend liberty and freedom for all in 1776.  They did not wait for someone else to create a new nation. He starts to challenge us to stop waiting for someone else to make this a better nation. His emphasis is on service and responsibility in these difficult times. These are not normal times and if we want the democratic experiment to grow and prosper we must commit to the renewal of the American promise of equality and to endure America must always be the land ” of the people, by the people, for the people so we will not perish from the earth.”   

As he speaks, you get a sense of what the inaugural message will be, a call for perfecting our nation through responsibility and a partnership of common sense in bringing people together to renew the American dream for all. He will send a message of confidence that will be built on positive relationships and sense of who we are. Remember what John W. Gardner, in his book No Easy Victories said  “learning and accomplishments only occurs when people have some measure of confidence and hope.” I would add that to bring the “dream” back the Americans must put into action all the things we value and sought in this democracy –trust, listening, respect, fairness, freedom, equality, justice, peace, education, health, love…

Obama’s Yes We Can… Just a Slogan or Signal of Authenticity

We live in an era of synicism and skeptics. Our country seems to be drifting or crumbling. Then along comes Obama. Bright, articulate,  successful, and the embodiment of the All-American Horatio Alger story… He needs to brand himself and needs a vision and tag-line to sell himself to the American political pundits and the public at large. Write a couple of books… Focus on –Hope. Change. Yes We Can. What does this all mean? It means that a new leadership style and approach is coming next Tuesday. I think what we will see is more pragmatism and evidence based action and a push for results. It will be driven by a more authentic and open leadership style identified in Blake and Mouton’s model of Leadership, called Managerial Grid as a Team-Leader  ( leader is both concerned about and considerate of people and is also task focus).  Being authentic and open is at the heart of the Obama Leadership Effect that I have being blogging about.What authenticity means was well described by the well-known psychologist, Karen Horney, who defined being one’s authentic self as “wholeheartedness”

—”the ability to be without pretense, to be emotionally sincere, be able to put the whole of oneself into one’s feelings, one’s work, one’s beliefs.”  As far as openness I recently heard a Republican Senator say ” I have spoken more with Obama in the last two weeks than I did in eight years with Bush”.  Maybe the critical factor to Yes We Can leadership is going to be two-way communication and listening. Soon we will know.

 

Purpose-Centered Leadership–Exercise on Getting Unstuck

  Mark Twain said, “I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” The hallmark of being stuck is catastrophizing or disaster fantasy —worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet and might not happen at all. Worry, by its very nature, means thinking about the future—and if you hoist yourself into awareness of the present moment, worrying melts away. When we are alert to observe and pick up life lessons from moment to moment reality there is no time for a catastrophe or remaining stuck.

Purpose-Centered Performance Leadership Exercise #2: Defining Vision Quest– Success? or Fulfillment?

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both. “
Zen Buddhist

What is Success? Fulfillment? How do they effect your vision? 

Why is it that some people seem to have the midas touch, whereas others don’t? Why is it that sometimes we attain it, yet it becomes fleeting?

What does fulfillment mean to you? What are we basing our actions, attitudes, values and opinions on?

Purpose-Center Leadership: Exercise #1 Vision Quest

Your Personal Vision Quest

 

 

Exercise:  Answer the following questions to create a personal life quest or vision.

 

 

 

• Imagine achieving a result in your life that you deeply desire.  Describe it.

 

 

 

 

 

• Suppose you had a vision of greatness and fulfillment for yourself.  What would it be?

 

 

 

 

 

 

• How do you want to be remembered by your family, friends, work associates and community?

 

 

 

 

 

• What are your strengths for achieving this personal vision?

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Write below your personal quest or vision. Now your life has a unique purpose – you might want to carry this vision in your wallet to help keep your life on this path.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Purpose-Centered Performance Leadership Model

“Leadership is something different from what is now touted under this label. It has little to do with leadership qualities and even less to do with charisma. It is mundane, unromantic and boring. It’s essence is PERFORMANCE.”

Peter Drucker

 

 Over the last few decades, consultants, teachers and researchers in the fields of organizational development and adult education have been seeking the answer to the question—What are the best practices and most effective styles of leadership?  If you search google on leadership research, books and articles you get over 1,200,000+ entries in the current leadership literature.  Even so, there remain many models, theories and opinions of what constitutes leadership with little agreement about what is effective leadership.  Some think it is trait/character-based (“Great Man” theories), others think successful leaders adapt their behavior to meet the demands of the situation (situation and task/relationship theories); others think that the essence of leadership is what we do to produce transformation and change and so on. Yet, effective leadership remains an amorphous and “fuzzy” theoretical concept.  Effective leadership and “best practices” are a lot like quality and great art: everyone wants it, but everyone has their own idea about what it is and how to produce it.  Therefore, leadership is defined in the “eye of the beholder.”  

The purpose of this posting is to provide a synthesis of the findings and valuable insights from the leadership field. Combine this review with my thirty+ years of consulting for non-profit and Fortune 500 organizations I have developed this model as a practical framework for putting leadership into action.  The Purpose-Centered Performance Leadership (PCPL) framework provides a comprehensive structure needed to support training and development of effective leaders.  PCPL is based on the concept that leadership is built on self-understanding, sustained by continuous learning, nurtured by ever-growing relationships, open communication and results in plans to produce  productive performance.

Obama’s Leadership message–Action–Urgency of Now!!!!

 

“We cannot put off living until we are ready.  It is always urgent, here and now without any possible postponement.  Life is fired at us point blank.”

      Jose Ortega Y Gassett, Poet

 

Great leaders have a bias toward action. They have the ability to convert purpose and vision into meaningful action. Just a few examples, FDR, WPA and CCC, Ike, the Interstate Highway,  LBJ, Civil Rights, JFK, Man on the Moon project.  It just isn’t enough to present a positive vision that people can trust. It has to be manifest in some productive performance and results. Most leaders are ideological idealist, dreamers or practical realist.  Who is Mr. Obama? He seems to be grounded in the need for constructive change and practical results. He is not an ideologue. He seems to be following MLK’s advice when he said “Life’s most urgent question is, What are you doing for others?”

The Leader-Coach has a Problem: How to gain Agreement

Leader-Coach has a Problem Steps for Resolution

 

1.        Gather the data and information

 

2.        Explore the Difference and Identify Problems

 

3.         Sharpen the Difference or Agreement

 

4.         Identifying and Exploring Solutions

 

5.        Get Commitment – Identify Action Plan – Follow-Up Steps

 

 

 

Behavioral scientists today strongly advocate the use of a counseling and participatory communication model that minimize emotional elements (defensiveness, fear, anger, etc.) of conflict.  The PlusOne Performance Participatory Problem Solving approach forces the employee to look at weaknesses, areas in need of improvement, or manager’s problems or suggestions for change in more productive, objective and non-defensive manner.  This application of a more directive and problem-solving coaching model is used to arrive at collaborative solutions and agreements for communication, productivity and interpersonal issues.

 

In such cases, the goal is to find the best solution not a win/lose response, not a compromise, but a win/win solution – so that both parties leave the discussion with commitment to change because a possible solution has been found to their disagreement.

Critical Leader Behavior: Connecting Through the Eyes.

James Humes, former presidential speechwriter, who identifies public speaking as “the language of leadership, says, every time you speak—whether it’s in an auditorium, in a company conference room, or even at your own desk—you are auditioning for leadership.”

 

  Let’s take a look at the physiology of vision.  Light enters the front of the eyeball, hits the rods and cones at the back of the eye, and creates an electrical impulse that shoots around the optic nerve to the optic lobe at the back of the skill.  Your brain then takes the better part of a second to decipher this electrical Morse code.  While the act of turning the electrical impulses into light, color and contrast is an unconscious brain activity, putting the shapes into a comprehensible context is a conscious brain activity. That is where we create a problem for ourselves as speakers.

 

It is perfectly natural to look rapidly around the room when first standing in front of an audience.  This rapid eye movement creates visual over-stimulation.  It forces our brain to process incoming visual stimuli on a conscious level.  When speaking to a group, we have another conscious activity that is trying to occur simultaneously… the delivery of our prepared topic! Our brains do not do two things at once very well, on a conscious level.  This is why our mind will sometimes go blank during the delivery of our prepared topic — to allow our brain to catch up on the processing of visual stimuli. Effective speakers naturally solve this problem by glancing at the ceiling or floor, where there is usually a blank space with little visual stimuli to process.  This works!  It would also work to close your eyes, as a speaker, to limit incoming visual stimulus.  For obvious reasons, closing your eyes would not be an acceptable strategy.  The most productive way to limit visual stimuli is to make contact with the eyes of an audience member.  

 

There are four powerful benefits to limiting visual stimulus this way: 

 

1.       You can “read” the response from your audience as you deliver a whole thought to one individual. 

2.       Direct eye contact conveys sincerity in all cultures across the world.  

3.    Direct “eye contact” provides time to limit visual stimuli so you can think more clearly.

4. It allows you to practice the 93% rule. We know from a famous study by Professor Albert Mehrabian of UCLA, that words – the things we say – account for only 7% of the total message that people receive. The other 93% of the message that we communicate when we speak is contained in our tone of voice and non-verbal elements, such as body language and eye contact. It’s important, then, to spend some time to understand how we are perceived when we speak with others. 

 

Finally, when pauses are added to this controlled eye contact technique, you enhance your non-verbal effectiveness and positive audience reception.  The pause plus eye contact puts your words into one cohesive thought at a time for the audience.  It also adds emphasis to the key points you wish to convey as a speaker.  Also, when you can’t think of what to say next, this pause buys you thinking time without giving away to the audience that your mind has gone momentarily blank.

 

The mastery of this controlled eye contact technique is the foundation skill for successfully connecting with an audience from one to one thousand.