Obama vs. Clinton: Leadership Styles

Obama vs. Clinton: Leadership Styles: "Viewpoint February 8, 2008, 6:08PM EST text size: TTObama vs. Clinton: Leadership Styles"

His approach of visionary leadership is appealing but risky. Her health-care reform managerialism already has been proven ineffective

The virtual dead heat in the Super Tuesday Democratic primary is being attributed by the punditocracy to the absence of any significant policy differences separating candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The two nonetheless have drawn clear distinctions between the ways in which they each propose to govern the nation, and those differences sound a lot like a rehashing of past debates about opposing styles of corporate leadership.

Senator Clinton (D-N.Y.) argues that the role of the President is not only to provide visionary leadership outward from the Oval Office to the nation and the world but also to control and direct the federal bureaucracy downward to ensure that policies are carried out faithfully and effectively.

In sharp contrast, Senator Obama (D-Ill.) declares he will do the chief executive's job by focusing completely on providing leadership vision, judgment, and inspiration. As for controlling the agencies that would report to him, he says he will delegate that responsibility. He pledges to stay above the managerial fray and, instead, hold agency heads fully accountable for the performance of the bureaucracies in their charge.

On one level, these visions seem to reflect a Carteresque tendency to micromanage (Clinton) and a Reaganesque organizational nonchalance (Obama). But each candidate is actually putting forth a well-reasoned philosophy of leadership, and their distinct approaches have implications for their respective abilities to deliver on the changes the majority of the nation seems to desire. From the vantage point of a business school professor, what is particularly striking is that the two candidates clearly articulate competing theories of leadership that have been the focus of much scholarly research over the last several decades; what I'll refer to as the "managerial" and "transformational" approaches.

Textbook Exercise
As Clinton reminds us, she has actual experience in the practice of the former. As head of the health-care reform initiative during her husband's first Administration, she conducted a near-textbook exercise in managerialism. She closeted for months in the White House with an impressive team of technocrats who thoroughly reviewed all the relevant data about the U.S. health-care system, analyzing various and opposing views about what should be done to improve its performance, and bringing forth a highly detailed national health-care plan. In assembling that complex plan, the technocrats included ideas from numerous, conflicting ideological and professional camps, assuming what they each would need to have in the plan in order to support it.

But instead of building a consensus for change, this exercise actually created deep dissatisfaction among all the relevant constituencies needed to enact the proposed legislation. By deciding what these players required without involving them in the process, the technocrats built resistance to the very changes they proposed. The result: gridlock and, subsequently, a dozen years of a worsening health-care crisis.

It is noteworthy that while claiming the mantle of experience, Clinton has not spelled out what lessons she learned from this lost opportunity. Based on the detailed policy positions the wonks on her campaign staff have put forward on every conceivable national issue, it would appear that she is still of the managerialist persuasion.

That's not surprising. After all, managerialism was, until relatively recently, the dominant school of thought in the corporate world as well. Influenced heavily by the quantitative techniques developed by Robert McNamara's Whiz Kids at the Pentagon and Ford Motor (F), it was promulgated at the nation's leading B-schools and, in the 1970s and '80s, led not only to the wide-scale practice of management science in business organizations but also to the creation of large, centralized planning staffs and the top-down leadership methods known collectively as "change management."

প্রথম আলো - আবার ‘ডিজিটাল টাইম’?

প্রথম আলো - আবার ‘ডিজিটাল টাইম’?

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খবরের কাগজের ভেতরের পৃষ্ঠায় এক কোনায় একটা খবর ছাপা হয়েছে এবং সেটা দেখে আমি আঁতকে উঠেছি। সেখানে লেখা হয়েছে, মার্চ মাসের ৩১ তারিখ ঘড়ির কাঁটার পরিবর্তন করা হবে (এটাকে কি এগিয়ে আনা বলা হবে, না পিছিয়ে দেওয়া বলা হবে—আমি সেটা বুঝতে পারি না বলে পরিবর্তন কথাটা ব্যবহার করছি)। কাজেই এইচএসসি পরীক্ষার্থীরা যেন বিষয়টা লক্ষ রেখে পরীক্ষা দিতে যায়। কারণ ঘড়ির কাঁটার পরিবর্তনের কারণে সময়সূচিরও পরিবর্তন হয়ে যাবে।
আমাকে অবিশ্বাসের দৃষ্টিতে খবরটির দিকে তাকিয়ে থাকতে হয়েছে। নিজের চোখে দেখেও আমার বিশ্বাস হতে চায় না যে এই দেশে এ রকম গুরুতর একটা বিষয়ে সিদ্ধান্ত নেওয়ার জায়গায় একজন মানুষও নেই, যিনি পুরো ব্যাপারটা একবার ভেবে দেখবেন।
ঘড়ির কাঁটা পরিবর্তন বা বিদেশিদের ভাষায় ‘ডে লাইট সেভিংস’ আসলে বড়লোক দেশের এক ধরনের বিলাসিতা—গ্রীষ্মে দীর্ঘ একটা দিনে বিকেলে দিনের আলোয় তারা বেশি সময় ফুর্তি-ফার্তা করে, সে জন্য ঘড়ির কাঁটা ঘুরিয়ে দেয়। শীতকালে সেটাকে আবার পরিবর্তন করতে হয়—বছরে দুবার এই কর্তন-কুর্দন তাদের দেশে মানিয়ে যায়, কিন্তু আমাদের এই দেশে? গত বছর সেটা পরীক্ষা করা হয়েছিল এবং এ দেশে সেটা শোচনীয়ভাবে ব্যর্থ হয়েছিল। লঞ্চঘাটে যদি কাউকে জিজ্ঞেস করা হতো, কয়টায় লঞ্চ ছাড়বে—অর্ধেক মানুষ বলেছে নয়টায়; অন্য অর্ধেক মানুষ বলেছে ১০টায়। দুজনেই সঠিক, কারণ বাংলাদেশের মানুষ সরকারের অবিবেচকের মতো নেওয়া একটা সিদ্ধান্তের কারণে দুটি সময় চালু রেখেছে। একটাকে তারা ধরেছে সঠিক সময়, অন্যটিকে তামাশা করে নাম দিয়েছে ডিজিটাল সময়। এই সরকারের ডিজিটাল বাংলাদেশ তৈরি করার আন্তরিক প্রচেষ্টার মধ্যে সময় নিয়ে এই তুঘলকি কাণ্ডটি হচ্ছে এক ধরনের টিটকারি—সরকারের বড় বড় মানুষের মধ্যে এটা বোঝার মতো কেউ নেই, সেটা ভেবে আমি এক ধরনের আতঙ্ক অনুভব করি।

Eight Big Ideas for Small Business

Tricks to Keep Growing

Tricks to Keep GrowingIt is a good thing that Roger Dreyer has a passion for magic. Over the past 18 months, the 48-year-old tried nearly every trick in the book to find the expansion capital he needed to grow his business, Fantasma Toys Inc. He turned to traditional bank lenders for working capital, with no luck. Even though he had a backlog of orders from the likes of Costco and Toys "R" Us for his firm's specialty magic sets, the deep recession made credit disappear. So like the chief operating wizard he is, he found an innovative approach to his dilemma.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1971190_1971191,00.html#ixzz0iWgAVO0l

Room to Read - Bangladesh - Room to Read

Room to Read - Bangladesh - Room to Read


Room to Read's Role
Room to Read successfully registered as an NGO in Bangladesh in July 2008 and hired a Country Director shortly thereafter. Room to Read Bangladesh is currently focused on building a local team to create an organizational and programmatic strategy in the country. Consistent with Room to Read's work in other countries, it is likely that programs will be in rural areas,(9) where the need is generally higher than in urban areas; additionally this is sensible in Bangladesh where 76% of the population lives in rural areas. The team will also explore potential opportunities for partnership with local and national government, non-profit organizations, and communities to establish libraries and girls scholarships.

Programs & Results
In its first year of operations, Room to Read Bangladesh plans to establish 75 libraries and support 200 girls in the Girls' Education Program. In addition to this, the country office will celebrate many operational results, some of these include hiring at least four staff members (Accounts & Finance Manager, Reading Room Program Officer, Girls' Education Program Office, and an Office Associate), establishing an office in Dhaka, and localizing Room to Read policies and procedures.