As president of the United States, Obama has a lot of different jobs to take on. One job that has become important to Obama is making sure that he works with private sectors to help boost and lift the economy. In order to do this, he had a dinner with multiple technology executives such as Mark Zukerberg, Steve Jobs, and Eric Schmidt. This dinner was set up in order to discuss topics that are going help combine the government and private sectors to work together and how they can all collaborate to help encourage kids to study math and science.
I think that the LMX theory comes into play at this dinner. Given that Obama is the President and these executives are CEO’s of large technology companies, it is easy to see that Obama has a large impact on these companies and vice versa. Obama’s goal it seems is to keep these companies in his in-group to help create jobs for the people in the U.S. and expand the economy. If they put their efforts together they are going to be able to be more effective.
At this event, it was a more laid back atmosphere and allowed Obama to talk to the executives as a whole as well as one-on-one. I think that the contingency model also comes into play at this dinner. As previously discussed leader-member relations in this situation are good and positive. Because the atmosphere is at a dinner, the structure is low and the discussions may not always be about all business. But, in this case, the position power is high because of Obama’s position in society and placement in government. This rates Obama’s preferred leadership style at a 3 (low to middle LPC’s). Therefore, I believe that Obama used the right style of leadership in this situation. This is the biggest strength of this theory that it takes into consideration the impact of situations on leaders. There is a right time and place to use different styles of leadership. Obama knew that he had a good relationship with these executives and he invited them into a laid back atmosphere.
Do you think that the right type of leadership style was used?
--Posted by: Devan Pritchett
Devan, I agree with you that according to the LMX theory these technology executives are in President Obama's in-group. Because of their success and worldwide impact, Obama has formed mature partnerships with these executives marked by high quality leader-member exchanges. I also believe Obama finds them more dependable, highly involved, and more communicative than his out-group.
ReplyDeletePosted By: Christine Burklin
Devan, you did a great job with relating the LMX theory into this topic. I think this is a very good leadership approach for Obama to use in this situation. It is very clear that these top executives are in Obama’s in-group because they are in this laid back environment consisting of unique relationships, mutual trust, respect, and liking. They are working together to help encourage children the importance of studying math and science. This is not something you would ever see with individuals who are in Obama’s out-group.
ReplyDeletePosted by: Genise Logston
It looks like a group consensus that you nailed Obama's leadership approach right on the money. I think this move by Obama is very intriguing. After reading this I came to the conclusion that he really showed confidence in his self to approach these executives in hopes of working together on new technology innovations.
ReplyDeletePosted by: Sean Gremillion