Decision Making – The Point of Leadership

By now it should be obvious that Barak Obama lacks leadership skills. But this should come as no surprise given Obama came into office with no leadership, business or military experience. Why is he such an ineffective leader? What’s missing? Why can’t he transform the power of his personality and office into leadership skills? And more importantly what can we as business owners and managers learn from this.

Nick Schulz at the American Enterprise Institute blogged that the Obama administration has less than 10% of its officials with private sector experience. Yet Obama and his team believe they are able to make better decisions on war, the economy and business than those who live and work in the “real world”. This arrogance is costing us dearly as a nation and a people.

I’m writing this article on Decision Making – The Point of Leadership to show one of the most critical skill sets needed if you plan on successfully running a country, company, ministry or for that matter any organization. I want to compare President Obama and his team’s decision making process with how business schools and war colleges prepare leaders to make decisions.

Business schools have an ongoing debate as to whether leaders are born or made. It’s no surprise that most business schools make the case that leaders are made and the best ones are made at there high priced institution. To me this is like the question, which came first the chicken or the egg. Anyone who has read the book of Genesis knows the answer, the chicken came first.

To prove my point, Marshall Goldsmith’s Ask the Coach blog on the Harvard Business Publishing website posted on January 14, 2008 an article entitled Great Leaders Are Made, Not Born. It’s interesting that both President Obama and ex-President George W. Bush have advanced degrees from Harvard.

President Bush attended the Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA. He characterized himself as an average student and is the only U.S. President to have earned this degree. All MBA students take courses on quantitative analysis and strategy. These courses are designed to teach students how to solve problems, make decisions and think strategically. But just because you’ve been to business school doesn’t make you a leader or a great decision maker.

President Obama graduated with a Juris Doctor magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991. He returned to Chicago where among other things he taught constitutional law for 12 years at the University of Chicago Law School. My personal opinion is that President Obama is an unconstitutional lawyer, but that’s another topic. Just because you’ve graduated from law school and are smart doesn’t mean you’re a leader or can make an intelligent decision in a reasonable amount of time.

General McChrystal and his senior staff are graduates of West Point, the Command College and have general war experience and specific combat experience in Afghanistan. The United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth mission statement reads, “The US Army Command and General Staff College educates and develops leaders for a full spectrum joint, interagency and multinational operations; acts as lead agent for the Army’s leader development program; and advances the art and science of the profession of arms in support of Army operational requirements”. McChrystal and his staff know what it takes to win a war, Obama and his staff are clueless.

Now let’s compare President Bush’s decision to implement “the surge” strategy in the Iraq war with that of the decision not to make a decision now  decision of President Obama in regards to sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Bush, and I’m sure President Obama, consulted their staff and advisers on the problems and opportunities being faced in the war on terrorism.  The difference is Bush backed his military commanders not his political, domestic and foreign policy advisers on the surge in Iraq which obviously worked. President Obama’s approach is to try and appease everyone by giving a little something to everyone. In his desire to offend none and take his time in making a decision he has left friend and foe with the impression that he is not up to the job of Commander-in-Chief and leader of the free world.

If President Obama is as smart as the liberal media says he is, why is he such an ineffective leader? What’s missing? Why can’t he transform the power of his personality and office into leadership skills. Arrogance and book knowledge is never a substitute for wisdom and real world experience.

One trait that all great leaders have is the ability to know just how much information or facts they need to make an informed decision. They know how to “pull the trigger”, execute the decision, and they know how to sell their decision (we call this buy-in) to their team. Leaders avoid what plagues President Obama which is paralysis through analysis.

Leaders learn from experience and learn from the classroom. Business schools and war colleges can teach leadership skills that make better leaders, but they can’t make everyone a leader.

Leaders also understand that not all decisions and plans are perfect. In fact one of the key lessons taught at war colleges comes from a famous quote from Helmuth von Moltke, that “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. In business we can modify von Moltke to read, no business plan survives contact with the market place.

Helmuth von Moltke’s  mentor was Carl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz’s book On War, published after his death in 1831, is being used by both the military and many business schools. It is just as relevant today so I’ve included some key quotes that all business and political leaders should read and learn.

“Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity”
- Karl von Clausewitz

“We must, therefore, be confident that the general measures we have adopted will produce the results we expect. Most important in this connection is the trust which we must have in our lieutenants. Consequently, it is important to choose men on whom we can rely and to put aside all other considerations. If we have made appropriate preparations, taking into account all possible misfortunes, so that we shall not be lost immediately if they occur, we must boldly advance into the shadows of uncertainty.”
- Karl von Clausewitz

“a certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.”
- Karl von Clausewitz

“The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they are embarking.”
- Karl von Clausewitz

All business schools and war colleges teach some type of the Traditional Six-Step Problem Solving Process:

• Identify and Select the Problem
• Analyze the Problem
• Generate Potential Solutions
• Select and Plan the Solution
• Implement the Solution
• Evaluate the Solution

And I’m sure the President intellectually understands this process, but an intellectual understanding is no substitute for basic leadership skills.

In conclusion we need to know how long we have to plan and implement the solution. President Obama took too long, as one democrat strategist said about Obama’s Afghan strategy, it was too little, too late. Don’t let this happen to you.

If Winston Churchill were alive today, he might paraphrase himself when describing Obama and his administration, never has so many know so little about so much.