President Obama displays a worrying trend. Confronted with major crises, the President over relies on experts. Further, he projects a detached leadership style. One would think that with an Ivy League education and a professorship at the University of Chicago, Obama could be skeptical of expert opinion rather than openly accepting of it.
Crisis Management
Crisis management require several elements: recognition that there is problem, identification of the right personnel to solve the problem, appointment of a team leader, allocation of resources to the team, and active involvement of the most senior executive to ensure the team leader and team are on track.
I have been in both the team leader and most senior executive role. Both roles require that the team and supporting experts be questioned, re-questioned and “grilled.” Interchanges need to be spontaneous, “rough and tumble.” For a desired outcome in these sessions, one cannot indulge in deference to rank, credentials or purported expertise.
At its best, the team is a white hot crucible where no one spares feelings and sensitivities. Questioning must be unsparing, comprehensive and intense. After every alternative is examined and probed, team members must “push” to even greater creativity. Only then can the team start to believe that it is approaching a solution. The senior leader must actively involve himself, and display enough self confidence to doubt any experts when appropriate. There are no short cuts to an outcome by way of blind deference to experts.
Obama’s Disturbing Pattern
Perhaps it is folly to speculate on the workings of the US Presidency. The President is surrounded by myth and press handlers. However, from time to time the public can glean elements of executive style. Some disturbing patterns emerge from Obama’s carefully constructed façade:
- In the health care debate there was an unwillingness to take on trial lawyers, health insurers, unions and big pharmaceutical companies.
- Protecting “too big to fail” financial institutions has remained the unquestioned economic doctrine inherited from the Bush Administration.
- Bank CEOs feel entitled enough not to attend White House summit meetings. Rather than displaying disapproval, the President lauds Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein as savvy businessmen. See Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon
- Deference to BP’s original oil spill estimate and deepwater spill containment expertise, has allowed the Deepwater Horizon problem to mushroom, undermining White House credibility.
In a brilliant article in Naked Capitalism, What do BP and the Banks Have in Common? The Era of Corporate Anarchy, Gonzalo Lira diagnoses the problem with Obama:
On the occasion of the BP oil spill disaster, President Obama delivered an Oval Office speech last night—a masterpiece of milquetoast faux-outrage. The speech was all about “clean energy” and “ending our dependence on fossil fuels.” Faced with the BP oil spill—likely the most severe environmental disaster ever—this was President Obama’s response: polite outrage, and vague plans to “get tough,” “set aside just compensation” and “do something”.
President Obama missed what the BP oil spill disaster is really about. Though unquestionably an environmental disaster, the BP oil spill is much much more.
The BP oil spill is part of the same problem as the financial crisis: The BP oil spill and the banking crisis are two examples of the era we are living in….
In a nutshell, it’s an era of corporate anarchy when corporations do not have to abide by any rules—none at all.
With his lack of the necessary public and crisis management leadership experience, Obama has become facilitator-in-chief of the chaos. Often he appears above the fray.
Too Cool Isn’t Cool
A well read teleprompter speech does not substitute for leadership. Obama has carefully cultivated a “cool” persona: not uncaring, but objectively detached. Leadership is a lot like baseball. No matter how good the pitcher’s fastball is, if that is all he throws, major league batters will eventually hit it. Like good pitching, good leadership requires changes in approach and speed. “Cool” may work sometimes, but sometimes it is necessary to display genuine emotion, concern and personal involvement. Further, at times the team leader needs to just get angry and make the team fearful of that anger. To do so requires enormous self confidence and battle testing.
Lack of experience was raised during the last presidential election. The charge was dismissed and Obama was compared to President Kennedy. Kennedy, however, was tested in battle during World War II and in the Senate. Kennedy inherited a wariness of businessmen from his father. He welcomed brilliant men and women into his cabinet; however, he never appeared star struck or naive.
It is dangerous to speculate on someone’s psychological narrative, but Obama, a person raised in modest circumstances without a father present, welcomed into the Ivy League and the halls of academia and political power at an early point in his life, is bound to be over-awed by the “experts.”
Obama now appears gullible, weak and ineffective. Pundits tell him to get angry. Such a display would be faux anger, as displayed in Tuesday evening’s address.
The President has to become a genuine skeptic, an Interrogator–In-Chief, questioning more and trusting less. Failure to do so only emboldens the enemies of our country, both internal and external.
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Related posts:
- Less Leadership Than Meets the Eye
- The Tragedy of the Commons Part II: Modern Finance and BP
- Storytelling, Narratives, and Truth versus Fiction
- The Responsibility Index
- Timothy Geithner and Plausible Deniability
Tags: BP, crisis management, healthcare reform, leadership, Obama
