At an
early age we are taught not to judge.
Not to judge someone by his or her looks, the car they drive, the
clothes they wear, or any other materialistic or worldly possessions they may
have to their name. Rather, we are tough
to give everyone a chance and base our options of them by less shallow
means. Personality, ethics, and actions
are how we would ideally evaluate the people around us. Yet, how would we understand and analyze the
people we cannot come into contact with?
How are we as Americans supposed to decide which presidential candidate
we wish to align our support with, if we can’t truly meet them? We have to do
this by casting aside political biased and partisanship, and create a real
option determined by the issues a candidate stands for. Sometimes this isn’t enough though, we need
to understand a person’s personality and past before we can cast our ballots
and set our decisions in stone. Steven
J. Wayne, of George Town University, feels the same way about this topic, and
closely observed Obama’s behavior and past to gain a clear understanding of his
personality, and how this affects his style of “ruling”. By reading Wayne’s book Personality and
Politics: Obama For and Against Himself, the reader can gain a concrete of
idea of the kind of person current President Barack Obama truly is. I will discus my options based on the major
themes I came across while reading Wayne’s book. These themes include: Obama as a realist or
an idealist, his decision making ability, and finally if he is a
transformational or transactional figure as leader.
We will start by examining the
question is Obama an idealist or a realist?
An idealist is someone who is guided more by ideals than by
practical considerations. While a
realist is a person who tends to view or represent things as
they really are. An example of each of
these types of people are Karl Marx, an idealist, and Niccolò Machiavelli who was a
realist. Marx had a romantic idea of
communism, and used this “imagine if” idea of it to gain support of an unproven
theory in his writing The Communist Manifesto. Machiavelli demonstrated his realist ideas in
his book The Prince, where he simply explained how to be a strong
ruler. He didn’t use any romantic ideas
he simply stated facts he gathered from historical events from around his
time. I believe Obama is more of an
idealist than he is a realist. He
believes humans are generally good and hard working. Obama sees himself as living proof the
American dream can be reached. In his
Inaugural address he said, “… we can shape our individual and collective
destines, so long as we rediscover the traditional values of hard work…” The
key word in that sentence is “rediscover”.
He has no control over this, he is hoping on the American people to make
a change to better the country. This is
very similar to Marx as he was hoping to make a change in the ideas of the
people through his writing. “Life
Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” according to Obama “immortalizes the
American belief in individual freedom…” (Wayne, 38) He believes that if he can level the playing
field, people will work to better their lives, for themselves and the people
around them. He is lead by the ideals he
found while discovering his own identity, and his religious beliefs are used as
a moral guideline, and not a literal way to live his life.
Obama
makes rational decisions, and he likes to please the people he is working
for. He keeps his focus on the doable,
and understands that compromise of his plans is necessary to making anything
happen in politics. His visions and
ideas are strong, but he will sacrifice here and there to see his ideas pass
through and gain support. Obama describes himself as, “… a practical person,
somebody who, I think can cut through some very complicated problems and figure
out the right course of action.” He
avoids taking risks, and is slow to rush to judgment because he needs to think
about everything his decisions can affect.
“Rigor, logic, and rationality guide his thought process. He tends to keep whatever emotions he feels
well buried.” (Wayne, 52) He thinks with his head when it comes to making
policies and laws. “He’s very methodical
in how he evaluates decisions.” David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political
strategist says, “He’ll engage you in a dialog on the options. And then he’ll make a decision. And he doesn’t look back at that
decision.” He is bold and he is confident. In a way Obama is an elitist because of his
ego. Which he is fully aware of, this
and his lack of emotion in making decisions makes him appear distant form
regular people.
Lastly,
is Obama a transformational
or transactional leader? A transformational leader goes
beyond managing day-to-day operations and crafts strategies for taking his
“company” to the next level of performance and success. A transformational leader thinks about how to
better the future of his “company”. A
Transactional leader is more concerned with maintaining the normal flow of
things and keeping everything running smoothly.
Ideally one must possess traits from both styles of leadership to be
successful, but I believe Obama is more of a transformational leader. He is concerned with bettering the country
for the future generations. He wants to
fix the problems we have now, and establish new programs to better situations
down the road. Obama’s policies on
social change are what lead me to classify him as a transformational leader. The easier thing to do would be to sit back
and say everything is fine, but Obama addresses and warrants change. Obama is pro-choice, pro same sex marriage
rights, and his The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
(or Obamacare as it’s now known) are all solid proof that he is trying to
change the country for what he believes to be for the better. “Obama sees government as a positive force in
promoting greater contrary, Obama sees government as a positive force in
promoting greater economic and social opportunities, especially for those at
the lowest end of the socio-economic scale. “ (Wayne, 40) Obama is trying to create programs and
situations to better the lives of poor Americans. He has been doing this since he was a young
politician in Chicago. Obama uses the
Bully Pulpit to express his options on these issues. He always speaks of how he plans to better
the country, and he has been successful (to an extent) in doing so during his
first four years as a president.
In
conclusion, I feel President Obama has done a good job in office during his
first four years. His upbringing and his
search for his identity in a confusing time and in an unorthodox situation
shaped him as a person and established his moral and political beliefs, as well
as served as a means to keep him grounded and his ego in check. He is an idealist, yet logical and is pushing
for social and economic change. He has
already made many changes for the better, he cut prescription price of Medicare
recipients by 50%, brought troops home, passed a $789
billion economic stimulus plan, Removed restrictions on embryonic stem-cell
research, and much more. Although
sometimes it takes him a while to get his ideas passed, he almost always gets
things done. He is a man of change for the
better, yet he keeps the traditional American values of hard work in order to
prosper in check. The manifest destiny
idea is still alive in America. If you
work hard enough anything can be yours, and President Obama wants to keep that
dream alive for millions of hard working Americans today.
