BARACK OBAMA

Barack Obama, Leadership in Historical Context

Barack Obama,Leadership in Historical Context

Introduction

The world has benefited by gaining numerous individuals that this leader has had the pleasure of educating. The world will continue to house this leader to inspire those who wish and to strive for success. People can study the pattern that has driven this person to the title of a great leader but will also understand that the success is shared by those within the organisation. The feeling this individual has come to experience are the feelings of inspiration to those that want to learn or at least have an alternative way at viewing a great leader. But the feeling, which is subtle, is this leader remembers who she was and where she came from and has never lost touch with her roots.

Historical Leadership

At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world -- that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond our borders(Chernus, 2008).

As Roosevelt built the most formidable military the world had ever seen, his Four Freedoms gave purpose to our struggle against fascism. Truman championed a bold new architecture to respond to the Soviet threat -- one that paired military strength with the Marshall Plan and helped secure the peace and well-being of nations around the world. As colonialism crumbled and the Soviet Union achieved effective nuclear parity, Kennedy modernized our military doctrine, strengthened our conventional forces, and created the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress. They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.

Today, we are again called to provide visionary leadership. This century's threats are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation of liberal democracy. They come from weak states that cannot control their territory or provide for their people. And they come from a warming planet that will spur new diseases, spawn more devastating natural disasters, and catalyze deadly conflicts.

Barack Obama as a Historical Leader

The sweeping victory of Barack Obama ushers in a new era of leadership that will affect every aspect of American institutions and that sounds a death knell for the top-down, power-oriented leadership prevalent in the 20th century. By winning more than 52% of the vote in a seven-candidate Senate primary in Illinois last year, Barack Obama instantly made his name in political circles(Smith, 2009). And after delivering a lyrical speech last July at the Democratic National Convention—he declared that ...