In The Political Arena, How Does Obama Show Positive Leadership In Handling The Fiscal Cliff For The

In the political arena, how does Obama show positive leadership in handling the fiscal cliff for the benefit of the greater good of all, when the Republican leadership (as well as the Democratic leadership with its principles) refuses to consider any plan that involves raising taxes, or essentially breaking the Norquist Mandate. Does good leadership in this case mean compromising to meet the mandated deadline? Or does it mean sticking to one's principle? Or a combination of both? 3rdmurnau

There are a couple of different things I could talk about concerning this question.  I could talk about the different types of leadership:

Great Leadership, 

Positive Leadership,

Good Leadership,

OK Leadership,

Bad Leadership,

Negative Leadership, and

Dark Leadership

But these styles of leadership are only a method to reaching the goal, they are not the goal in itself.  

The goal as many would have you believe is to fix the fiscal cliff.  But is that really the goal, or is someone just trying to control the conversation?  What is the real problem and is that the goal?

Could the real goal be to move social security and medicare insurance into the private sector?  And what would happen if these organizations were privatized? Why do Republicans want military spending to go up? Why do Republicans believe that too many people are abusing the system - choose your system, including voter fraud. Maybe the real goal is to develop a stable economy, where everyone can prosper? But this goal would require the government to return to it's former practices of redistributing wealth, in order to benefit all, not just a few.

Compromise will come once we understand what the goals are. This is the unfortunate part, since the intent of the Democratic party and the Republican party may not be the same.  And to-date, the Republican party has been unwilling to budge on even those points which they have in common with the Democratic party. It's become an all or nothing atmosphere.

So, how should President Obama lead in this instance. The President has the ability to influence not only the Republicans and the Democrats in the House and Senate, but also those at all levels of government. While the President is charged with upholding the laws passed by Congress, he usually isn't fully funded to administrate all of them.  We saw this when is informed his personnel and the public that certain individuals would no longer be sought after for deportation. 

Another way that the President could lead in this instance is to take his case to the general public.  While most people believe that the President only influences the House and Senate, he has clearly demonstrated that he can influence the general public to "Get Out To Vote!" Through an information campaign, or as  mentioned before, take control of the conversation and reshape how the public perceives the problem, the goal, and the steps towards achieving that goal.

Since, information is power, the President can do what he has been doing all long very well: outline the facts, provide the options, and discuss his plan on how we can pressure the House and the Senate to move.  Letter writing campaigns can be very effective when it comes to getting representatives to move at all levels of government, especially when their whole party is at stake of being overturned.

Now should President Obama allow Norquist Mandate to go into effect?  While at first this might seem like a bad thing, it could also be like a parent telling their children that if they don't straighten up, then the punishment will be a night in their room without dinner.  As harsh as it may seem, children usually get the message the first time around when you stick to your strategy. So, the worst that could happen is that the American public becomes upset with their representatives and decides to vote them out of office.  

And if these groups of people don't want to wait till the next election for that representative's due date, then they can gather the necessary signatures for a petition and vote them out early using a recall election.  I, though, doubt that President Obama would publicly call for this type of grass roots action be taken, but it may be necessary in the next year to adjust the House and Senate to remove the blocks, and get the Republicans to come to the table.

I think right now the Republicans have a very hard decision to make. Stick to their principles and wants, or watch their constituents turn on them and remove them one by one or on mass.  Personally, I'm for the on mass option, as they would get the message that much faster.

Can Leadership be Taught?

Leadership is not an innate trait built into genetic code, nor is leadership provided through the "Divine Right of Gaud".  No instead it is a natural phenomena that can be nurtured and taught.  There are many reasons why some people seem to become great leaders and others don't become leaders at all.  But that is for another article, in this article I'd like to discuss the topic of teaching individuals how to become leaders.

Leadership is guiding intent with integrity. These three qualitative values "Guiding", "Intent", and "Integrity" work together to help people choose a style of leadership that works for them personally as well as works for the group they are guiding.  The first step in teaching someone to be a leader is to help them see the vast range of methods used to guide.

Guiding someone is not an art.  Someone asks a question, you give an answer.  You point them in a direction.  You provide them with feedback on what has happened.  You console them.  The guidance provided though is based on your intent.

Your partner asks you if this looks good, how do you respond and why do you respond in that manner?  Do you tell them that they look good even when they don't?  Do you tell them that they don't look good in that outfit?  Is the outfit appropriate for the environment you are going to attend?  Or do you find another way to help them towards their goal?

Intent isn't just about your intent, it's also about their intent.  What is it that they intended for themselves.  If your partner wants to look good, then the language you use will help guide them to a better choice.  Or the language you use will trigger an emotional episode.  Is your intent to make them emotionally dependent on you, or emotionally dependent?

Finally there is integrity.  Integrity has many different synonyms that mean roughly the same thing:  accountability, ethics, morality, virtue, sound, honest, chaste, and so on.  In the sense that we will use integrity here, it is in relation to the social contract.

The social contract is the written or verbal agreement made between the leader and the follower.  The accountability determines whether or not the leader and the follower are following this social contract, and if not how are they correcting each others deviation from the contract?  Are they demanding that the contract be adhered to, are they  penalizing each other for not holding to the contract, are they talking about the contract as malleable  or are they looking at the social contract as the target they want to reach?

There are many different things that the social contract can become.  It can become a beacon of hope, or a weapon to beat each other up with.  It depends on how the contract is designed and what it is designed to do.  As this is an agreement between two people, the contract can always be re-evaluated and adjusted as needed.  But, in order for that to occur, both parties need to be willing to examine how the contract is affecting themselves and see how the contract is affecting others.

A good question to determine if the social contract or integrity of the people involved is in line, is to ask, "What is the goal?"  Many people use rules that determine a persons integrity.  Above 50% and you're good, below 50% and you're bad.  However, in many games there is the goal at end of the field.  In order to reach that goal all parties have to work together to reach it. So, if the social contract is written at the 50 yard line, then the parties involved are constantly battling over who is in integrity.  But if the social contract is written with a focus on the goal, then every play that helps everyone move towards the 100 yard becomes a positive reinforcing step in the right direction.

While the short answer is that leadership can be taught, there is a lot to learn about what affects leadership.  While looking at Guiding, Intent, Integrity, and the Goal we also learned that language and the social contract play an important role in the guidance given. We can make people dependent on us or independent on us. We can celebrate the small victories or fight over the small upsets, the question is what is used to measure progress, and where is the goal marker?

WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER WHEN YOU ARE IN A BAD MOOD?

When I'm in a bad mood, I take time to journal about what has upset me?  I ask a series of questions ..

What is upsetting me?

What caused this upset to happen?

What should I do to resolve this upset?

How do I feel at the time of this writing?

Can I live with the upset and that which caused me to become upset?

What to do I gain by becoming upset?

What would I give up to stop feeling upset like this?

What would I gain if I stopped responding this way?

What do I want?

I then take a nap and fall asleep.  The questions, solutions, wants are subconsciously processed . New possibilities surface, and that which caused me to become upset ceases to upset me any more.

Measuring Performance

There are many ways to measure performance.  It can be on the task performed or the goal to be reached. How quickly and easily it was reached.  The other measure that could be applied is how quickly customer improvements are applied.  But the best measure is whether or not everyone ... customers, employees, and associates ... would recommend Yahoo on a scale of 1 to 10 and then why.  One provides the quantitative value, while the 2nd question provides a qualitative value which may contain additional information to further improvements.

But let's get back to Goals and Objectives.  What drives these?  A CEO's vision of a better future, or a customers feedback?  Or both?  How do you measure these?  

One of the biggest mistakes that most people make is that they create rules at the 50 yard line.  50% you win, 50% you loose.  But what's at the 100% yard line.  If there was a rule that stated what the best possible outcome could be, wouldn't you prefer to strive for that? 

This objective, the 100 yard line, is more than a fantasy.  It's actually a statistically proven psychological fact.  Two hockey coaches each trained a team. One told his team what not to do. Another told his team what to do.  Each team did exactly what their coach told them to do.  Exactly .. but here's the catch.  The team that was told NOT to do something, did it what they were told not to do.  The team that was told to do something did exactly what they were told to do.

So you can set goals at the 50 yard line or the 100 yard line.  What type of Goals and Objectives would you prefer to set and have set for yourself?

Strategic Thinking

Why would General Mills, originally a single cereal manufacture, decide instead of creating new cereals, it would purchase other companies that are making cereals?  What was the strategic decision making process behind that decision?  

What I have found in my years of examining companies is that many people misunderstand three (3) parts of a companies objectives.  The first is the problem (business or personal) that the company is trying to solve for it's customers.  The second is the vision statement which demonstrates what a world would look like if this problem were resolved.  And the third is the mission statement, which describes how the company intends to achieve its objective.

It is the first part that most companies can't quite articulate, have missed articulating, or leave it assumed - we are in banking, what more do you need to know?  This however, allows the company to veer way off course due to a lack of understanding of the reason why the company started initially.  This like the United States Constitution provides a basis from which all decision are made.  And, when this problem is solved, so then is the company.  

A strategic decision then becomes a debate about, "What is in the client's best interest?"  Employees are encouraged to examine the client's problem from all perspectives, and determine how best to solve the problem.  All arguments require the client's business problem to be the central issues to be resolved, not an after thought.  

If new products or services are added to the business, then they in some part are there specifically to address either the client's business problem, or the daily business activities needed to support the business processes involved in solving the client's business problem.  This is what strategic thinking means to me.  Looking at the ship either in total or in part and determining what is the best course of action to help everyone work towards solving the client's business problem.  

Law of the Lid

John Maxwell, in "Leadership 101", ISBN 0-7852-6419-1, describes a principle called "The Law of the Lid".  This principle describes how effective people can be in organizing others to build something bigger.  For example taking a small business, duplicating it, and franchising it. John's equation is simple, the stronger the leader and the more successful they are, the higher their lid will be.

I have a few problems with is principle.  First of all, John's definition of leadership doesn't exist. 2nd, this principle doesn't take into account the connections that successful people and leaders have made over time.  Nor does it take into account their financial resources to make things happen.  The other thing that it doesn't account for is why does something become successful?  

So before I get to far off track, let's take a look at some of these factors.

While John's definition of leadership doesn't exist, he does describe how one can improve their leadership skills.  The first step is to recognize that they don't know what they don't know and to search every corner nook and cranny for anything on leadership. The second point is learn from mistakes.  Every leader makes them, record them and use the lessons they have to further your growth.  3rd, practice brings experience, experience brings wisdom.  4th, leadership becomes an innate behavior.

John continues in further chapters to describe the traits of a leader:

Discliplined, 

Challenges excuses, 

Establishes rewards for finished jobs, 

Prioritizes life activities,

Chooses the people to connect with,

Prioritize assignments,

Initiate activities,

Connect with people,

Take time to plan actions,

Invest time with people,

Develop trust*,

Demonstrate their capabilities and confidence,

Consistent,

Respectful,

Cast Visions,

Listen,

Influence

* Trust for me is a FOUR LETTER WORD.  It should never be used, because if you have to ask someone to TRUST you, then you're begging someone to set aside their fears and doubts that you are incapable of doing the job.  Instead of asking someone to TRUST, demonstrate that they can TRUST you, then you'll never have to ask them.  They will already know they can.

While the traits describe a leader, they are not a definition of leadership, which is, "To guide intent with integrity".  John touches on this point in Chapter 7, "Influence", when he describes his first assignment as a pastor.  Here he learns how to build and lead a group of followers who have no financial vest interest seeing the church succeed.  It was just a desire.  Or as the Man Kind Project calls it, "He was learning to herd cats."

John discusses another principle about leadership. It is the ability to get people to participate without leverage, power, position or threats.  However, in looking at the definition of leadership, "Guiding Intent with Integrity", these behaviors fit very well into the definition.  What these behaviors do describe is one style of leadership.  While pastors should not use these traits, they may be necessary under the right circumstances, such as disciplining a disobedient nation.

Moving on to my second point, John doesn't take into account the connections that successful people have built.  This suggests that people who are building a successful business and wish to grow that business have not established a report with their banker and investors to demonstrate that they can successful manage from 1 copy of their business to 20 copies of their business.

If I'm going to loan you some money, and I'm using my money as a way to grow my financial nest egg, then I have to know that I'm going to get my money back with 5 to 10% interest.  This is the way simple investing works.  So, now the question is, how do I invest to insure that say 80% of all my investments return 10 to 15% interest, so that overall I have accrued 5 to 10% interest?  By using factors that allow me to look at your business model, determine it's success ratio and find a number between 0 and 100% that says, "Yes, your bet is x% safe here."  And if X is greater than say 80%, I should probably feel confident that it's safe to invest in you.

In another book review, forth coming, on "The Ultimate Question", I'll discuss a few factors that can help investors determine safe bets.

Now back to my point. Successful people know how to determine safe bets.  These bets in turn are executed by individuals who they "TRUST" or have demonstrated that they are capable of taking the investment and returning a profit for the investor.  If you haven't established that type of reputation, then I suggest you get a credit card and start taking out small loans and paying them back over time and building this trust.  Very slowly, very small and very safe.

The third point that I brought up was that John didn't take into account the financial resources that successful people have to make things happen.  So let's go take a look at our investor.  He wants to build out a new chain of restaurants. However, to insure that these restaurants are successful, he may also need to build a series of shopping malls to attract people, and in building such malls, may also need to build house around them.  Population density insures that stores are frequented regularly, goods are bought locally, and that his investment has a great chance of return.

To be able to do this, an investor might need to pool his money with many other investors.  So, while one has the idea for a food chain, another has ideas for a clothier, and others for small and medium size businesses, and the last could have the idea for the housing projects.  All these people need to come together through an investment firm to build out the final project.  Unless you're a billionaire, and then you can do it all on your own, by using the people who work for you.

But mind you, building things, throwing money at something, doesn't mean it's a safe bet.  "Build it and they will come" some times doesn't work. Ask the Chinese who've build huge empty cities. No one lives in them. And they have 4 billion people living in their country alone.

Which brings me to my last point concerning the "Law of the Lid", why is something successful.  It's not because someone threw their money at it.  It's because a group of people like the idea or product.  John might have learned this while in his first pastoralship (sp).  When John came into the church to guide them, all his patrons had a series of common desires that brought them to this church: Friendship, worship, devotion to the grounds, ... so on.  (My point is that there may not have been 1 thing that united all of them together.)  But, the church for what ever reason provided something that these people needed, and they in turn gave back.  

They believed in the idea and the product that the church provided.  They wanted others to share in that idea and product. They promoted the church.  And when things needed to get done, they gave as much of themselves as they could to help get it done.  I'm sure that there were things like missionary causes, sports leagues, after school programs, and such.

The Law of the Lid doesn't discuss these issues in relationship to leadership.  Since leadership is about guiding intent with integrity, guiding peoples beliefs about the idea or product that they are receiving from a church is very important.  It helps them formulate intentions that will want them to invest their time and hard earned money into the church.  To make it better. To help it sustain itself over time. So that it will be there for others to enjoy.  But to do this, there has to be an accountability, integrity, an understood agreement with the congregation that the people representing them at the church board are doing what is right for the whole.  If that TRUST is broken. If it is demonstrated that the board doesn't have the congregations interest at heart, then those who see this will leave the church.  It will be seen as the intent of the church board and the intent of the church congregation are not in alignment, and the groups will fracture.

So is there a true Law of the Lid on leadership?  The answer is no. Everyone has the ability to be a leader.  There are a lot of facets to leadership and studying them will help you understand how to better guide people's intentions and stay in integrity with yourself and your followers, and the observers. This fictitious lid doesn't exist because anyone at any time can demonstrate to others that they have a successful idea, product, and are capable of achieving the results that will attract people to their cause, idea, service and/or product.