Group Discussion

Group Discussion
With your group, please discuss the questions below. Then, one person (you) in your group should summarize the group’s ideas into a cohesive, well-crafted response to the questions.This response should be posted as your group’s final post for this forum.

For this discussion board, your group will need to select ONE leader (Rahm Emanuel). This leader can be a business executive, a political or religous figure, or the leader of a social movement.

After you have chosen your leader, consider and answer:

1. What are the sources of this person’s power and influence?

2. Which important personal traits of leaders does this person possess?

3. What is this person’s leadership style (transactional, transformational)? Give three examples of his or her actions/decisions/communications that prove the leadership style.

4. Has this person made any “Big Mistakes” as found in the video “The Biggest Mistake a Leader Can Make”? If so, what was/were the mistake(s) and what were the consequences? What should the leader have done instead?

5. Does this leader have strong social and emotional intelligence? Provide three examples of how this leader does or does not have strong social and emotional intelligence.

6. Overall, is this person an effective leader? Give three examples of how this person is or isn’t an effective leader.

Bellow one of my group members response, write your own version and combine his:

1. Rahm Emanual’s vast resume is his source of power and influence. Of course, his position as mayor of Chicago gives him the majority of his power, but his past gives him influence in the political community. Rahm has served on two presidential staffs, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as finance committee director and chief of staff, respectively. He was also a member of the House of Representatives from 2002-2008. These positions, along with many others, have allowed Rahm to gain respect and develop relationships within the political community. His ability to leverage these relationships and his extrovert personality allows Rahm to influence others.

2. Rahm possesses many traits of an effective leader: extroversion, passion, confidence, and fearlessness. Extroversion is the most important. Rahm’s extroverted personality gives him most of these leadership traits. He displays passion for every cause he supports, often “getting his hands dirty” to prove his support. You can tell by the way Rahm speaks that he has confidence in himself, his staff, and their decisions. Most of all, Rahm is a fearless politician. He rarely backs down from a challenge, even if it is contrary to the norm.

3. Rahm is definitely a transformational leader. A key component of transformational leadership is the ability to work as a group to make the world a better place. In this case, Rahm is working to make Chicago a better place. His campaign centered around doing things as a team, using the word “together”. His public support for regimes that promise change, such as Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, prove that he is not satisfied with the current state of the world. A transactional leader would strive to sustain the current state of operations. Rahm’s undying support for the first African-American president (Obama), the first woman president (Clinton), and same-sex marriage, proves his unwillingness to settle for the current state of the nation. Rahm’s initiatives rarely have to do with sustaining current practices; they seek to make the world a better place.

4. I watched the video “The Biggest Mistake a Leader Can Make” and the only mistakes I can see Rahm making is being too certain about himself and occasionally coming off as arrogant. These two mistakes are attributable to his strong personality. Self-confidence and fearlessness can, at times, hinder an extroverted person’s ability to consider all their options. I don’t have any specific Rahm examples; this is just an observation I’ve had when dealing with people with similar personalities. One trait, as the speaker called it, that Rahm definitely exhibits is an ability to self-reflect. Rahm has constantly spoken about always learning from his mistakes, particularly when he inappropriately announced that he intended to name a new Chicago high school after his former boss, Barack Obama. (HERE is an article about this controversial decision).

5. In the video “Social Intelligence and Leadership”, Daniel Goleman named social intelligence the more important of the two when considering leadership. To the most, Rahm seems like someone that struggles with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is determined by how we handle ourselves and how we manage our emotions. Rahm’s personality, as hyper-emotional and self-confident, sometimes results in him lashing out when he doesn’t agree with someone. When he was working for Bill Clinton, he screamed at Tony Blair (then the Prime Minister of the UK), to “not fuck this up” before Blair was going to make a pro-Clinton speech. In a more public instance, Rahm called White House liberal activists “fucking retarded” when they told him of their plan to run attack ads against Democrats who didn’t support Obamacare. He offended hundreds of mental health organizations with that comment and prompted many to call for his job. This is where his social intelligence comes in handy. Rahm’s ability to read and influence others is uncanny. Many of his inappropriate comments go unnoticed due to his ability to predict his audience’s reaction to them. When his comments get him into trouble, he is able to talk his way out of it by using his political relationships and influence to convince people to forgive him.

6. Though he may often lack a filter, be very emotionally charged, and wildly humorous, his loyalty to Chicago has never been in question. His strong social intelligence, regardless of his poor emotional intelligence, helps Rahm run the third-largest city in the country very effectively. His wide variety of past political experience has prepared him for his current job and has gained him immense favor and influence in the political community. His social intelligence allows him to leverage this favor and influence to push for the initiatives that will make Chicago a better place. In a state where governmental corruption is the norm, it’s nice to see Rahm following in the footsteps of his predecessor.

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