Class (2) Peer Response (1)

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Strategic leaders are leaders that have supportive teams to ensure that their objectives and goals are met while ensuring that their strengths and weaknesses are managed to the best of the team members’ abilities. On this note, therefore, I agree with the researcher fully, since strategic leaders are supposed to operate on the basis of approaching issues or crises, with fast-working solutions at hand to meet both individual and organizational goals.

On top of this, the researcher writes about the embrace of rivals and strong-minded people into the cabinets of both of these leaders. There is a lot of truth in this. Abraham, for instance, included two of his rivals, Edward Bates and William H. Seward, during his nomination for the presidential election while managing to seek military advice from the commanding general, Winfield Scott (Ameet, 2019). Lincoln further included important colleagues, on top of his rivals, to challenge him and his way of thinking (Brettle, 2020). Obama, in the same light, appointed Hillary Clinton as the secretary of state during his presidential nomination, together with several other rivals onto his cabinet, just like Lincoln did to embrace the intellectual horsepower that led to their success (Nelson, 2019). I am in strong agreement with the researcher on inclusion of the rivals and strong-minded people into the cabinets of Lincoln and Obama as strongholds in their decision making process.

With regard to taking into consideration the views of his team members, Lincoln sought the advice of his own on various matters, including the abolition of slavery. Although this was an important step, he listened to all the advice that he was given, even in light of thoughts against decisions of slavery abolishment, and then made his final decision. His final decision was lined in the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves, which was agreed upon by some and disagreed upon by others (Coutu, 2009). On that note, Lincoln was sure to take his and his team’s responsibility for any issues that might have arisen as a result of mistakes that had been made along the way. This was a matter of reliance on the team but not self-reliance. The researcher has done a good job in the engagement of his team in decision making, so much so that it reflected positively on his government, especially in slavery abolishment. Looking at Obama in the same light, he engaged a lot of his cabinet members in decision making regarding the financial crisis that the country faced (Epstein, 2009). His engagement with both democrats and republicans helped inform his financial decisions better to an improvement during the crisis. Problem solving during his tenure included a lot of engagement with all sorts of intelligent people in his cabinet. I agree with the researcher’s work on the steps Obama took in dealing with the financial crisis.

It is clear that Lincoln and Obama were strategic leaders when they were serving as presidents, and especially when including their rivals and other strong-minded people in decision making. Challenging decision making is what they were going for, on top of a lack of compromise, and feedback for improvement. The researcher makes strong arguments in this regard.

References

Ameet, R. (2019, Feb 13). Four Leadership Lessons from Abraham Lincoln. Medium. https://medium.com/@ameet/four-leadership-lessons-from-abraham-lincoln-83867391bfe0Brettle, A. (2020, Apr 28). 3 crisis-leadership lessons from Abraham Lincoln. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/3-crisis-leadership-lessons-from-abraham-lincoln-136794Coutu, D. (2009, Apr). Leadership Lessons from Abraham Lincoln. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2009/04/leadership-lessons-from-abraham-lincolnEpstein, G. (2009, Jun 10). Obama’s Economic Policy: Achievements, Problems and Prospects. OpenEdition. https://journals.openedition.org/regulation/7459Nelson, M. (2019). Barrack Obama: Domestic Affairs. Miller Center. https://millercenter.org/president/obama/domestic-affairs