Effective listeners gain access to a diversity of ideas and potential solutions that otherwise would not have been generated. They also strengthen relationships, build trust, improve teamwork and show employees that they care.
Effective communication is important, but it requires more than just a basic oral or written transaction between two people. Good leaders facilitate genuine conversations — meaningful human-to-human connections — and bring people together to work and gain agreement in order to achieve goals. Quite simply, strong leaders walk the walk and talk the talk.
In other words, they model the same behavior they expect from their teams. You can have inspirational quotes and company values framed on the wall all you want, but modeled behavior will always be more effective. Healthy conflict is good for relationships and organizations because it challenges assumptions and creates great results. Powerful leaders allow different views to be presented and shared, and know that disagreements can open pathways to innovation and higher-performing teams.
Successful organizations consist of employees who are invested in their work, which means there will be moments of joy, frustration, confusion, exhaustion, and a host of other feelings. Emotions, both positive and negative, are a fundamental part of who we are, and ignoring or suppressing them is harmful. Good leaders know the importance of fostering a healthy cognitive and emotional culture , in which individuals feel safe in saying how they feel and expressing their views, without stigma or shame.
Leaders with high levels of self-awareness can consciously influence situations and positively affect their teams. This would not happen if he had chosen to become a lifetime king or if federal laws were ignored. It was also clear to Washington that the new experiment in representative government would likely fail if the infant nation became involved in European conflicts.
Washington is in a class by himself. His style of non-partisan leadership perfectly fit the needs of the new republic. He warned against "the spirit of party" in his Farewell Address, but it went unheeded. Soon party politics would dominate American democracy. For a few years at its beginning, President George Washington made it possible for the United States to survive and grow. In that was his greatness. George Washington was truly "the indispensable man" for his time.
Assume that you are an American citizen living in the year You have heard about Col. Write a letter to Washington listing arguments against the U. How do you explain the fact that Jefferson, Hamilton, and the other founding fathers were superior to Washington in many ways, yet he was "the indispensable man"?
Washington attempted to lead the United States by trying to do what was best for the whole country. He avoided taking sides in political disputes. What made George Washington a great leader? Try to answer this question in one sentence. As a class, brainstorm characteristics of a good president and list them under Column A.
After a number have been listed, discuss each item by asking students to provide a reason for its inclusion. Remove those for which no reason is provided. As a class, by vote or consensus, decide which 10 of the items are most important.
Rank them. Brainstorm a list of presidential responsibilities and list them under Column B. As a class decide how the characteristics in Column A could help a president with the responsibilities listed in Column B. As you study each president in U. Discuss each in terms of characteristics and responsibilities. Add additional items to the lists as necessary. Compare recent presidential and vice-presidential candidates in terms of the listed leadership characteristics. Which are best suited for office?
Alumni Volunteers The Boardroom Alumni. Curriculum Materials. Add Event. Main Menu Home. I, No. A Class by Himself The fact that Washington became the first president of the United States does not automatically mean he was a great one. Giving the Country Time Shortly before he was inaugurated, George Washington wrote: "My movement to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of execution.
Roosevelt Washington Jefferson T. Narrowly reelected in , Bush saw his approval sink to new lows around 30 percent over the course of his second term. Naturally and inevitably, presidents employ pollsters to measure public opinion. After the devastating loss of Congress to the Republicans midway through his first term, President Clinton hired public relations consultant Dick Morris to find widely popular issues on which he could take a stand.
Even when public opinion data have no effects on a presidential decision, they can still be used to ascertain the best way to justify the policy or to find out how to present i.
Polls can identify the words and phrases that best sell policies to people. President George W. After a poll showed that some people did not believe that President Obama was a Christian, he attended services, with photographers in tow, at a prominent church in Washington, DC. Presidents speak for various reasons: to represent the country, address issues, promote policies, and seek legislative accomplishments; to raise funds for their campaign, their party, and its candidates; and to berate the opposition.
They also speak to control the executive branch by publicizing their thematic focus, ushering along appointments, and issuing executive orders. In their speeches, presidents celebrate, express national emotion, educate, advocate, persuade, and attack. Their speeches vary in importance, subject, and venue. They give major ones, such as the inauguration and State of the Union.
Gabrielle Giffords and bystanders by a crazed gunman. They give commencement addresses. They speak at party rallies. And they make numerous routine remarks and brief statements. President Obama traveled to Tucson on January 12, , to help memorialize those who died in the shooting rampage there. Watch the entire speech below:. Presidents are more or less engaged in composing and editing their speeches. For speeches that articulate policies, the contents will usually be considered in advance by the people in the relevant executive branch departments and agencies who make suggestions and try to resolve or meld conflicting views, for example, on foreign policy by the State and Defense departments, the CIA, and National Security Council.
It will be up to the president, to buy in on, modify, or reject themes, arguments, and language. In search of friendly audiences, congenial news media and vivid backdrops, presidents often travel outside Washington to give their speeches. Bush visited twenty-six states to give speeches; this was a new record even though he refused to spend a night anywhere other than in his own beds at the White House, at Camp David the presidential retreat , or on his Texas ranch.
Memorable settings may be chosen as backdrops for speeches, but they can backfire. The banner was positioned for the television cameras to ensure that the open sea, not San Diego, appeared in the background. Speechmaking can entail going public : presidents give a major address to promote public approval of their decisions, to advance their policy objectives and solutions in Congress and the bureaucracy, or to defend themselves against accusations of illegality and immorality.
Even at a time of policy failure, the president can frame the issue and lead public opinion. Crisis news coverage likely supports the president. Moreover, nowadays, presidents, while still going public—that is, appealing to national audiences—increasingly go local: they take a targeted approach to influencing public opinion.
They go for audiences who might be persuadable, such as their party base and interest groups, and to strategically chosen locations. The president gets things done as an agenda-setter and the chief lobbyist and via his veto power and signing statements. To what extent he can lead Congress depends on its party composition and ideological makeup. As the chief executive, the president gets things done through the appointment powers, executive orders, and war powers.
The president seeks power and public approval through speeches and by heeding public response to polls. Skip to main content. Module 5: The Executive Branch.
Search for:. Reading: How Presidents Get Things Done Learning Objectives After reading this section, you should be able to answer the following questions: How does the president try to set the agenda for the political system, especially Congress?
What challenges does the president face in achieving his agenda? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the presidential veto? Can and do presidents lead Congress? Why do presidents give so many speeches? How do presidents seek public approval?
Link: Presidential Recordings Between and , six American presidents from both political parties secretly recorded just less than five thousand hours of their meetings and telephone conversations. Agenda-Setter for the Political System Presidents try to set the political agenda. Chief Lobbyist in Congress After suggesting what Congress should do, presidents try to persuade legislators to follow through. Legislative Liaison Presidents aim at legislative accomplishments by negotiating with legislators directly or through their legislative liaison officers: White House staffers assigned to deal with Congress who provide a conduit from president to Congress and back again.
Consider the following: Vetoes alienate members of Congress who worked hard crafting a bill. So vetoes are most used as a last resort. It was the only alternative. It is useless if Congress does not act on legislation in the first place. In his speech proposing health-care reform, President Clinton waved a pen and vowed to veto any bill that did not provide universal coverage. Such a threat meant nothing when Congress did not pass any reform. And unlike governors of most states, presidents lack a line-item veto , which allows a chief executive to reject parts of a bill.
Congress sought to give the president this power in the late s, but the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional. Congress can turn the veto against presidents. For example, it can pass a popular bill—especially in an election year—and dare the president to reject it. I think that is a sign of decline, not growth.
History will make its own judgments. Long after a president has departed the White House, history will write a judgment about what the president does. President Bush is fond of saying that, in the short run, history always gets it wrong. He is also fond of telling a story about Sam Houston.
Sam Houston was the only person in American history who was governor of two states and failed to serve out his term in either state. He was the governor of Tennessee in the s, married a much younger woman which is always a mistake and was embarrassed by the marriage.
History argues over exactly what happened. But, feeling embarrassed, he resigned his office and lit out for the Indian territory.
He won the Battle of San Jacinto to free us from the control of Mexico and was the second president of the independent republic, was its first United States senator, and in , was elected governor of the state of Texas. He loved the Union. He was a follower of Andrew Jackson, and all his adult life labored to bring Texas into the United States. So when the election of occurred, he could not bring himself to sever Texas from the Union. A constitutional crisis occurred. A secession convention was called.
The convention issued an order to every statewide elected official that every statewide official would have to sign an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy or their office would be declared vacant. The deadline came and went without Sam Houston signing the oath of loyalty to the Confederacy. His office was declared vacant, and his lieutenant governor was made governor.
He died two years later. Virtually no one went to his funeral. In the short term, history said Sam Houston was a traitor to the cause of his state. But long term history has judged him to be what he was — a great man, of vision and leadership, who was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for what he thought was right. And he could care less about public opinion. No president can operate effectively by himself. A president must build coalitions within his own party and between the parties.
He must also rise above parties. But the role of party leader is vital for a president: no president can be a successful leader without being a party leader. A successful president surrounds himself with a strong team.
Think about George Washington. He started both [with] Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton in his cabinet, two men who hated each other , strong-willed individuals, yet both of them sitting around the table. A successful president also organizes advisers to give him what a president most often lacks — solid, straightforward advice.
President Bush talks about how he wants to create a spirit in which people feel comfortable coming in and saying what they feel in the Oval Office. He is absolutely wrong on this. President, you look fabulous today. President, I strongly disagree. The office awes people that much. So an effective leader is one who can allow people to give advice that may not be in agreement with his views and values and opinions, and yet to feel secure in the knowledge that they are serving the president by doing so.
Creating this environment for rigorous give and take, and minimizing leaks and the use of the press to pay back other members of the staff who said something with which you might disagree, is a difficult thing for a president to do, but a vital thing. Finally, there must be a readiness to act and a comfort in deciding. One of the great easy deciders was Theodore Roosevelt. This is the th anniversary of the West Wing which, incidentally, for those of you who have not been in the real West Wing, looks nothing like the one on television.
People tend to walk a little slower in the real West Wing. The offices are one heck of a lot smaller. The lighting is nowhere near as dramatic as it is on the television program, but it is a pretty nice place to work. But a week ago Monday was the th anniversary of the West Wing. The West Wing was built in characteristic Roosevelt style — a very short period of time.
I want the building completed by October and the grounds put back in order by Nov. There are two interesting sidelights to that. One was a battle between President Roosevelt and his wife. The site Roosevelt had picked for the West Wing was where the garden conservatories were.
In , Buchanan began building these ornate glass conservatories. Over the years, they had grown and grown and grown. It was a great social highlight of Washington to be able to go, particularly in wintertime, to see the orange trees with the First Lady. Roosevelt did not want the conservatories to be removed. She lobbied the architect to find another location for the West Wing. It was also characteristic of Theodore Roosevelt that they built the West Wing so fast. They got it done in time — they finished it in mid-October — let the paint and the plaster cure for a couple of weeks, and they moved in on the fourth of November.
But it was so hastily built, so shoddily built, and so small that they had to tear it down and double its size in , when the first Oval Office was created. Roosevelt got his way, but someone had to clean up after him.
But he was comfortable in making decisions. None of these characteristics are enough for a president to be successful. It is how the presidents apply their abilities in times of crisis that matters. He was a fabulous constitutionalist but one of my least favorite presidents. He almost single handedly brought together the Constitutional Convention, [and was] author of the Bill of Rights.
But he was a lousy president. All of the great characteristics that helped him write our Constitution were of little help in governing as president. We have had some fabulous speakers come to the White House. One was Forrest McDonald, the great revisionist historian, who gave a talk on presidential greatness.
This tripled the size of the McKinley caucus in Washington. But McDonald said nobody knows McKinley is great because history demanded little of him. He modernized the presidency, he modernized the Treasury to deal with the modern economy, he changed dramatically the policies of his party by creating a durable governing coalition for 40 years, he took a special interest in finding the rising generation of young leaders and putting them into the government, he attempted deliberately to break with the Gilded Age politics, he was inclusive and he was the first Republican candidate for president to be endorsed by a leader in the Catholic hierarchy.
The Protestant, Anglo Saxon Republicans were scandalized by his campaign, in which he paraded Portuguese fishermen and Slovak coal miners and Serbian iron workers to Canton, Ohio to meet him. He just absolutely scandalized the country. Yet the times demanded little of him. Yet the times could have demanded as they have of other Presidents, some of whom rose to the challenge. Who would have thought that a guy who was a failed one-term congressman, a failed U. Senate candidate, and a railroad lawyer would have had the capacity to rise, as Lincoln did in a time of crisis, to do the greatness that he did?
Great presidents are made not just by themselves and their upbringing, but also made by the times in which they live.
But some presidents like Kennedy are thrust into moments of greatness and others are not. Audience Member : Thank you, and welcome home, Mr. We appreciate your remarks just now and, of course, this morning also. The election has come and gone, and that was one great week for your White House and for your boss. Would you speak in the context of what you just talked about — the political capital of the president, the challenges he faces which are of historic meaning, how you see this man you work with daily handling that, and how we can be helpful as citizens in that context.
Rove : The news today, on the surface of, is it very good, but we need to be watchful. The statement needs to be examined in its totality. More importantly, even if the statement is as it has been depicted, what really matters is results.
We face an adversary who has thumbed his nose at the United Nations for 11 years — in the face of 16 United Nations resolutions. He has diverted literally billions of dollars from oil sales to continue to fund his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction — and we should not kid ourselves [about] how open and how desirous he is of obtaining these materials.
This is not a man who hides his desires. We need to make certain that we have zero tolerance for any violation of the most recently enacted U. Foreign policy is something that every president ends up having to deal with whether he likes it or not. We live in a world that is increasingly connected, in which America is the sole superpower, and in which if we blink, the rest of the world falls asleep. It is a dangerous world we live in, one in which presidential authority must be exercised cautiously and deliberately and in concert with as many allies as we can garner around the world.
But it has to be exercised. This is not a situation where the United States can blind itself in the belief that we are protected by two vast oceans and two big allies to the north and south. After we ought to know this with clarity. No president wants war. Every president understands that there is one person who gets to hug the orphans and comfort the widows and the husbands. It may sound corny, but I have seen him do it. I saw him do in on in New York.
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