TITLE: Barack Obama Vs Mark Zuckerberg: A comparison of Leadership Style, from a Public and Private Sector Perspective.

TITLE: Barack Obama Vs Mark Zuckerberg: A comparison of Leadership style, from a Public and Private Sector perspective:
Executive Summary:
In this assignment, we are going to impartially analyze two leaders currently alive in the world. So that, this assignment might serve its purpose fruitfully, the two selected leaders are Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg. The former being a political leader while the latter being an entrepreneurial one. For the purpose of this assignment, the term 'organization' will be used to refer to both a business as well as a country. This assignment is going to compare the two leaders, reasons for their effectiveness, and the skills they possess which makes them successful.
Introduction:
Leaderships may be defined as any action done to lead a group of individuals or an organization. However, not all leaders have been created equal, and while many possess admirable leadership skills, a greater portion do not. Leadership is the process of influencing others to work willingly towards an organization's goals to the best of their capabilities. As a property, leadership is a set of characteristics, attributed to ones who can influence others on the basis of those characteristics. The concept 'leadership' may be viewed within two contexts: first as the capability of a person to become a leader on the basis of certain outstanding qualities; and secondly as a legitimate position a person occupy, for the achievement of a certain mission, goal or objective.

Before we plunge to discuss the leadership styles, skills, and abilities of our two selected leaders, it is imperative that we know a bit about them to have a better understanding and appreciation of this assignment paper.

A brief background on the leaders, being compare, contrast and discuss in this paper:

Barack Hussein Obama, was born on August 4, 1961, is the 44th President of the United States. He was elected to office, in 2008, and again, in the elections of 2013, by popular democratic vote. He has also won the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, for his work on the American Foreign Policy, which effectively mitigated the tension sustaining in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

Mark Zuckerberg, was born on May 14, 1984, is the Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Facebook, Inc. He launched Facebook.com in the year, 2004, after dropping out of Harvard College, to pursue it full-time, and rose to fame along with his website. He has been named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, in 2010 for his outstanding qualities, and also because he is the 2nd youngest self-made billionaire in history.

Relevant Leadership Styles:

There are many leadership styles in existence which are irrelevant for the purpose of this assignment paper; however a description of the following two will prove useful in better discernment the leadership skills of our selected leaders.

The democratic form of leadership: is one in which the leader and the followers make decisions based upon a majority vote: a consensus. This sort of a system gets the employees to work as efficiently as they can, because they have the sense of being a direct part of the organization. It also encourages an exchange of views and opinions, which more often results in wiser outcomes and decisions. However, such a system tends to take powers away from a leader, and the leader is powerless against the majority's opinion. Also, decision making, takes a long time in a democratic system, as the views and opinions of all the parties must be taken into account before any sort of decision is reached.

Barack Obama is a Democratic leader, not because he represents the Democrat party, but also because the United States is a democracy and hence he has to work under the system. He possesses the skill of emotional intelligence, which is one of the good qualities of a successful democratic leader (Daniel, L. 1999). Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, communicate, manage and effectively apply the power of emotions as a source of human energy for purpose of communication, creativity, conflict resolution or building relationships. Emotional intelligence also develops the social inter-cultural awareness in a person that enables him to get a better understanding of other person's values and social needs, which is most required when interacting with governors of other countries.

Autocratic form of a leadership: is one under which all the decisions are in finality and made by the leader. An obvious advantage of such a leadership style is that the decision making process is swift, hence its usefulness, in cases of emergencies. For routine work, the autocratic form of leadership is perhaps the most efficient type of leadership style, there is, as people would have a clear indication of where their orders are coming from. Unfortunately, the autocratic style of leadership has its downfalls. First and foremost, it does not get the team involved in the decision making process, hence at best, it gets their passive attention and involvement in any project. There is also a decreased sense of loyalty within the team towards the organization, which may adversely affect total productivity.

Mark Zuckerberg is an autocratic leader, as he is the Chairman and CEO of Facebook. He cannot be replaced as a CEO by popular vote, like Barack Obama can be, so he has the freedom to get his way with things. However, he does not do so. His behavior is one which at times resembles that of a democratic form of leadership, where he is keen to listen to the opinions of his subordinates. However, most times he just wants the job done the way he wants it, and no one can question his authority at that.

Mark is a perfect example of the fact that leaders at times do deviate from standardized leadership models, and may observe many models within their tenure as a leader. Such deviations should always be expected.

Barack Obama Vs Mark Zuckerberg: the comparison:

For a leader to be effective, he must possess the following three skills:
#1: Behavioural Control:
Leadership in the public sector is much different when compared to the private sector corporations, as in the public sector, elements such as reward cannot be offered to the workers. In such scenarios, a leader has to be clear and decisive, so that the workforce, subordinate to him, pays heed to his voice.

Obama has always kept a very calm demeanor in the White House, the office of the president of the United States. He is very confident about his opinions, but still pays heed to his subordinate's views and opinions as well, while still keeping the power to make a decision with himself. Barack Obama has the quality of "empathetic" behavior, which is very useful for a democratic leader. Empathy creates self-awareness: awareness of the other person's emotions and situation. Here the function of a leader, as a 'coach/mentor' becomes so valuable, due to the emotional intelligence of leader like Barack Obama, who created such an image, where his subordinates are drawn to his opinions. For him, losing temperament will look very unstable and place doubts within his subordinates regarding his ability to run office. Yet, what he says, matters, because he has maintained his image of importance throughout his tenures.

However, Mark Zuckerberg is not as calm as Barack Obama, and does not need to be. Mark is concerned with running his organization and making it as profitable as possible, and therefore, he has adopted the autocratic leadership style which ensures timely completion of tasks within the domain of organizational goals. He does take into account, the voices of his subordinates into question, but even if the majority is adamant about a particular course of action, if he does not agree, he has the right to say no. And he does say no, whenever he is presented with a prospect that does not appeal to him.

In comparison, both leaders seem similar, yet they are quite different in their approach. Barack Obama's job is to perform his duty as a leader while maintaining a certain sense of likability between his subordinates and the general public in order to stay in office. Mark has no such restrictions, and even if he acts horridly, and behaves atrociously, his workforce will still work for him. However he still maintains the demeanor of a democratic leader, while being an autocratic one, which makes him a highly effective leader. As far as Obama's effectiveness as a leader is concerned, his likability can be assessed by his reelection in 2012 by popular vote.

#2: Working with Systematic Limitations:
Mark's leadership qualities are limited to the Internal Working models that prevail within organizations. Internal working model emphasizes on need of understanding the working relationships within organization and then managing the individuals responsible for maintenance of those relationships. He works more as a 'mentor' for employees with the responsibility of addressing to them the work related problems of individuals working within his organization and also the responsibility for addressing to their need of professional development. Mentoring provides a secure platform to individuals who maintain the confidentiality of their problems and ensures their development according to their abilities, skills and ambitions. Motivating the employees is an important skill required by leader, but this skill is highly influenced by position of power held by leader in organization and by organizational norms and structures.

Barack Obama on the other hand is more democratic in his style of leadership. He does not approach decision making like an autocratic does, largely due to the systematic limitations that the democratic system puts on the President. A democratic leadership style is entirely based upon a mutual decision making process, wherein the leader and followers make decisions based upon consensus regarding matters. This eliminates the task of keeping subordinates motivated to work, as subordinates are already an active part of the decision making process.

A comparison of these points will show very clearly how Mark works towards giving his employees job security whereas Obama does not have to do any such activity. For Obama, his effectiveness as a leader in this regard portrays in the way he organizes his people together to work on a common goal. His workers are already motivated; he just has to get them together. Mark on the other hand has to provide his employees with job security and other perks to stay motivated, and his effectiveness as a leader translates in the fact that Facebook has been ranked the #1 place to work in by Forbes Magazine. Mark is clearly the more effective leader in this regard, because he had much more work to put in to get his employees to become loyal and involved in organization matters as compared to Barack Obama, who had the democratic system do much of the work for him.

#3: Decisiveness during Emergencies:

When Chemical Weapons were used in Syria in the second half of 2013, President Barack Obama was faced with a tough choice: To either threaten the Syrian government into giving up their alleged chemical weaponry, or to face an all-out attack chartered by the President himself. Whether the Syrian government had used chemical weapons in the recent attacks or not is not a point of concern here. What is interesting to note here is the pattern of decision making Obama took in the subsequent days. The President was adamant on going to War with Syria, and was supported in doing so by his team. However, the people who had voted for him said otherwise. The majority of the US, including the majority of military, opposed the attacks, and after analyzing such statistics the President had to back down from his otherwise adamant decision.

This is a perfect example of the limitations Obama has to face as a leader. Even though he is the US Commander in Chief, he still is very cautious about the people who have voted for him. This also stems from the fact that within a democratic system, the President is actually an employee of the people, appointed at the post to lead. The laws of both leadership and employee both apply to such a leader.

Mark, however, has no such limitations of the system, as he is the CEO of a private company. He can and does take decisive decisions whenever there is need for such, regardless of what his subordinates think of him. This offers him absolute freedom, and his challenge is to control this very freedom.
Conclusion:

The more effective leader in this regard is the one that is the most decisive regardless of the system he belongs to for an effective rebound during an emergency. For a leader to be effective, he must take strong decisions without giving regard to the system. Obama has displayed such decisiveness, with his strong stance on the Syrian issue regardless of the fact that public opinion went against him. Mark has no limitations; hence he is expected to be absolutely decisive as the CEO of a company. In this regard, henceforth, Obama is the more effective leader when compared to Mark Zuckerberg.

Reference List:
Maxwell, J.C. 1998. The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. Thomas Nelson Publishers
Covey, S.R. 2004. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. Anniversary Edition. Free Press
Carnegie, D. 1998. How to win friends and influence people. Special Anniversary Edition. Gallery Books.
Lencioni, P. 2002. The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Jossey-Bass.
Maxwell, J.C., Zettersten, R. 1999. The 21 indispensible qualities of a leader: Becoming the person others will want to follow. Nelson Books.
Adair. 2009. Effective Leadership: How to be a successful leader. Revised edition. Pan Publishers.
Maxwell, J.C. 2006. The 360 Degree Leader: Developing your influence from anywhere in the organization. Nelson Business.
Rath, T., Conchie, B. 2009. Strengths based leadership: great leaders, teams, and why people follow. Gallup Press.





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