Public Leadership Presentation

Assignment 2: A Public Leader

Shahin Alakbarov

Strayer University

Prof. Dr. Mark Pantaleo

PAD 515

August 15, 2014

What contribute to superior performance in every public or private sector are good leadership skills and competencies. When the approach towards leadership becomes competence centered then the next generation of leaders will be better developed. Many researchers have been trying to define leadership competence and skills across the globe. However, the future leaders should be driven by the changes in the business sector and rapid changing strategies. Different organizations and public sectors create distinctive attributes for their leaders that enable them to have some competitive advantages over others. In this article, I will be focusing on selected two leaders, Jeff Bezos of amazon.com and Regina Benjamin of le batre rural health clinic, will be focusing on their leadership styles as public administrators.

Jeff Bezos is the founder of amazon.com the biggest online retailer and every new venture succeeds and the secret behind his success is concentration with customer needs (Scally, 2012). He has a long-term view, and he brushed aside critics in quest to achieve the long-term goals. Future orientation according to him involves assuming even some positive criticism. According to Jeff, once has to possess the ability to be misunderstood for the long time.

Regina Benjamin is primary care doctor, and she had defied all odds and remains consistent in the field. In modern days with little pay and increasing patient’s demands, many are quitting primary healthcare except Regina Benjamin (Benjamin RM. Planting Seeds of Excellence, 2009). She is dete4rmined to stay in the field despite all the difficulties involved.

Jeff Bezos also have the courage and ability to fail repeatedly in experimentation. He sees it as a positive culture that everybody should embrace. Because of that culture he can also attract such kind of people with similar attributes. His other quality is a time being a little bit crazy, and he thinks outside the box and making crazy decisions (Scally, 2012). He also has priority to be customer’s satisfaction. Jeff Bezos is so much obsessed with the customer satisfaction that every move he makes is to satisfy his customers.

Regina Benjamin, on the other hand, sees obstacles as just that, challenges. She had maneuvered all the way right from being a student to making the greatest impact in the society. Having good education also deem to help a lot Regina Benjamin, and she was able to defy cost effective ways that would help her deliver healthcare services to the community that didn’t have a lot of money (Benjamin RM. Planting Seeds of Excellence, 2009). Education she said helped knew how to work with people and she was able to realize a lot of benefits by working with other people. She is a leader who also follows her heart as opposed to doing what she wants to do.

Jeff Bezos greatest strength is rigidity, but he is willing to give. These enable him to focus on business goals while allowing for little changes. Somebody who is not rigid will abandon goals instead of pushing them through. The second greatest strength is constant experimenting. He encourages employees to experiment constantly with new ideas knowing that they might fail. Experimentation leads to great innovation. The third strength is a focus on the customer. Everything that the company focuses is customer satisfaction, and it is the only center of attention (Cohn & Moran, 2011). In order to grow and expand business, the customers need have to be addressed at the first point.

Regina Benjamin’s perhaps greatest strength is mostly drawn from academics; she has distinguished academic credentials and went through much credited schools. The second strength is ability to lead by example especially with the fact that she herself is a long distance cyclist, runner and hiker as she encourages the national exercise to promote personal health.  He also leads community Surgeon General’s Walks throughout the United States. She is also focused on the need of individuals as opposed to money driven. In her community service, she never quits even with little pay and serving customers without much money.

Regina Benjamin’s weakness is that she focuses on a single issue for a long time. As a surgeon general, she had focused mainly on obesity without a clue of anything new. Most ironically said that she is not leading by example and that she is advocating weight loss yet she herself is obese. But besides that she has the capacity to come up with unique ideas like breastfeeding campaign. Another weakness is that she easily gets trapped in non-relevant matters like saying that people are worried to exercise because it will damage their hair (Healey & Lesneski, 2011). Most critics think that she is touching on irrelevant matters and have no business holding such lucrative post. Critic said that she had also chosen the invisible that is in truth a weakness. It is true that she ought to have utilized the position she holds in matters such as doing public announcements on media houses to reach out to consumers about ways to reduce health risks, but chose the opposite, which is invisible. The major weakness is therefore inability to capture the attention of many and she seems to hide from publicity that is not a good thing for somebody in top public administration.

Jeff Bezos weakness is a lack of empathy and treats workers as resources and their work not recognized much. He is also cited as being too confrontational. Unlike other CEOs, he does not bring in personal relationships and emotions into the core business of management and therefore he is able to allocate both resources and manpower efficiently in his hyper rational decisions (Cohn & Moran, 2011). Bezo does not care much about personal issues all is interested in is business growth. Another weakness is that he is inflexible and can’t adjust to reflect on positive criticism. This has however worked out to be an advantage because he leaves no room for destruction from criticism.

Courage is one of the strengths that make you recognize fear, but enable one to encounter danger decisively and with firmness. With courage one can morally stand up to the idea that even though it may not be popular and beneficial at that moment it will be advantageous in the long run. With courage one can face challenging head on. There will be no fear in facing the state of your organization and business. It is only, by knowing the true state of the business or organization that you will be able to steer the organization or business in the right direction. Courage also enables one to seek feedback and listen and without fear act in the direction that drives in the right direction. With this quality, you can say what you want to say or need to be said. Sometimes it might be uncomfortable to do so but it help as it moves through issues, it entails bringing very unpopular opinions on the table. Courage also encourages push-back. Leader should not shy away from pressure especially in instances on fierce debates but the courage is in knowing that with diverse opinions lays the right answer. To confront people is hard, and many leaders ignore them only to realize later that they have caused a lot of damage to the team and company at large. By therefore, taking quick decision and lying those off it will be an advantage to the organization. Courage also makes it possible to make a decision and move forward. In an environment with fear, it becomes a challenge to make a decision and move forward. Courage will also influence leadership ability in that I can be able to hold people to account. Lastly, it enables to call people and hold to account on the commitments they fail to deliver. Accountability also starts with you as the model for others you would like to account for their actions.

In conclusion, Good leadership skills are what bring success in every organization. future leaders should be driven by the changes in the business sector and rapid changing strategies. Different organizations and public sectors create distinctive attributes for their leaders that enable them to have some competitive advantages over others. Jeff Bezos is the founder of amazon.com while Regina Benjamin is primary care doctor, and she had defied all odds and remains consistent in the field. Jeff Bezos greatest strength is rigidity, but he is willing to give. These enable him to focus on business goals while allowing for little changes. Regina Benjamin’s perhaps, greatest strength is mostly drawn from academics; she has distinguished academic credentials and went through much credited schools. Courage is one of the strengths that make you recognize fear, but enable one to encounter danger decisively and with firmness. Both leaders were courage’s that is why they succeeded in their leadership.

References

Bosher, W. C., Kaminski, K. R., & Vacca, R. S. (2004). The school law handbook: What every

leader needs to know. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Scally, R. (2012). Jeff Bezos: Founder of Amazon and the Kindle. Greensboro, N.C: Morgan

Reynolds Pub.

Cohn, J., & Moran, J. (2011). Why are we bad at picking good leaders?: A better way to evaluate

leadership potential. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Benjamin RM. Planting Seeds of Excellence. (2009). Journal of Medical Licensure and

Discipline. 95(1):3–4.

Healey, B. J., & Lesneski, C. D. (2011). Transforming public health practice: Leadership and

management essentials. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.