The news of a first bipartisan brainstorming session on Tuesday reflects a dramatic shift in White House strategy and substance according to the New York Times. But, after a year of one-party rule, secret sessions, and political pay-offs in return for legislative votes, it is highly unlikely that the proclaimed change will transform politics and policy-making in Washington.
The President’s motivation to announce this change is easy to explain. He appears to be adjusting his leadership stance so he can successfully advance health care reform. Confrontation and exclusion have not worked for Barack Obama. Is the new “bipartisan” face real or a political set-up to pass Obama Care? And will the “shift” save this presidency? Continue reading…
Joseph Plumeri, chairman and CEO of Willis Group Holdings, is an interesting guy. It’s unusual for a top executive to admit he is changing his ways, and for the better. A command-control leader for most of his career, Plumeri says that business has changed, and so too must he. Instead of dictating a solution, he wanted to create a culture of collaboration and debate where innovative, practical solutions are developed.
In an interview with Adam Bryan of the New York Times, Plumeri talks about the downsides to his former approach: When you give people their marching orders, you’d better be right. “The problem is when it doesn’t work, and people start to grow and feel like they’ve got more to contribute, it wears out. I think that’s what happened to that whole command-and-control approach.”
Drew Gilpin Faust, president of Harvard University, is an inclusive leader who is constantly reaching out to all of her constituents in her mission to advance the institution. She says “I like ‘we’ instead of ‘I’.” …”I like people who get excited when they’re telling me how they see the future.” You will discover a number of great insights in this interview with Faust, as reported in The New York Times.
I watch the soap opera in Washington with great amazement and a bit of anxiety. Our leaders appear to be taking the country down a road filled with minefields. They speak with distain about Wall Street bankers who were about to drive the country off the cliff, yet fail to see that’s exactly where they could be heading – by creating waves of excessive spending, trillions in new debt, and political maneuvers designed to hide the truth from American citizens, voters, taxpayers.
Although candidate Obama argued for a bipartisan culture, his leadership has created something very different. In the past few weeks, the administration has heightened its attacks against its enemies: Continue reading…
