Dr. Maccoby participates in a Weekly Forum on Washington Post.com called "On Leadership". I am compiling all of his responses to the weekly questions here.

The overcomer: Barack Obama

It is tempting to pick Alan Mulally or Sam Palmisano as leaders of the year. As other American auto companies stumbled, Mulally led the Ford Motor Company to profitability and modeled a more open culture, different from the company I consulted to in the 1990s where anxious managers viewed each other as enemies and executives focused their energies on buying companies rather than improving product. Palmisano has forged IBM into the prototype global knowledge company, transforming a cumbersome bureaucracy into collaborative networks of experts from different disciplines who work interactively with business customers.

Both leaders have the advantage of followers who are paid to jump at their commands. Both have gained universal applause for their leadership. Not so for the leader I believe has achieved the most against strong resistance: Barack Obama. My reason for choosing him as leader of the year is that he, more than anyone else, has guided, pushed and often persuaded skeptical and independent legislators to craft laws that move America forward.

The press generally writes or talks about Obama's leadership in terms of winning and losing, political victories or defeats. Historians will doubtless report these scores, but they will evaluate Obama in terms of how well he served the American people. In his campaign for the nomination and presidency, Obama spoke of four main goals, which to some degree were interrelated. One was to strengthen America to compete successfully in global markets. This required improving education, investing in science, developing clean energy, providing universal broadband high-speed Internet access and, in general, upgrading national infrastructure. The second, to provide all Americans with health care, was to be paid for by increasing taxes on the rich. The third was to end the war in Iraq and the threat from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The fourth was the promise to make politics in Washington less adversarial.

Obama took on a heavy challenge, with goals requiring support from Congress. As he entered office with the financial system collapsing, GM on the verge of bankruptcy and millions of Americans losing jobs, his challenges began to look like the labors of Hercules. Only this Hercules had an organized opposition dedicated to his failure. There would be no new era of collaboration in Washington. Republicans did not agree with his domestic policies, especially universal health care, and they had the support of many Americans. As he worked to corral support from the Democratic majority in Congress, he faced followers pushing him to the left--demanding a public option to compete with private health insurers, a larger government stimulus to create jobs and other demands that hardened opposition from the right--and a center that was skeptical of big government.

Obama, a pragmatist with goals he believed essential for a stronger and more decent society, faced opposition based on interests and ideology. The interests are well known and based on rational motives for money and power. The ideologies of the extremes are less rational. Despite evidence that good government (especially effective regulation to prevent financial and environmental disasters) benefits the nation, the far right believes market forces and individual initiative will solve all problems. And despite evidence that a majority of Americans don't like government taking their money and giving it to people they consider undeserving, the far left believes that Obama would gain support by being more of a Robin Hood. Americans can be very generous to those they know are suffering through no fault of their own, such as the disabled and victims of disasters. But 68 percent of Americans, a higher percentage than any other advanced industrial society, believe that success in life is determined only by individual effort. Voters opposing health-care legislation have said they do not want their hard-earned money taxed for the benefit of people who haven't worked hard enough to afford health insurance.

With a new, more conservative Congress, Obama's challenges will become even greater. To sustain his gains and make any progress, he will need to be more effective in explaining his goals and persuading Americans they will benefit from his policies. Rather than attacking people with extreme ideologies, he will strengthen his credibility by patiently describing why he disagrees with their thinking. At the same time, he should show that he is listening and responding to those Americans who share his aims for building America but who question his policies, especially in this observer's view, concerning the need to control the costs of health care and to end the war in Afghanistan.

| TMG Home | PTWC | Articles | Books | Contact Info | Comments |

This web site is being maintained by Maria