Donald Sensing writes an interesting and insightful post on President Obama as Chief Executive. He uses Mae West and the Peter Principle as his reference points for describing the President's performance in office.
We have here a Mae West presidency, which I illustrate with two quotes of the platinum blondeshell:
1. It's better to be looked over than overlooked.
2. There's no such thing as bad publicity.
And,
... the trip illustrates perfectly why the president is a premier example of the Peter Principle.
"The Peter Principle is the principle that "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, a humorous treatise which also introduced the "salutary science of Hierarchiology", "inadvertently founded" by Peter. ...
The Peter Principle is a special case of a ubiquitous observation: anything that works will be used in progressively more challenging applications until it fails.
I'm not totally convinced about the first assessment. Though after the last two weeks with the UN, the G-20 and the Olympics, I'm more open to the notion.
I am very much convinced that the Peter Principle has come home to roost in the President. His lack of executive experience has been telling all along. The true believers won't buy this critique, but anyone who has had to run a business sees the tell-tale signs of inexperience.
Here are three examples of poor executive performance by the President.
1. Managing the budget. Many executives ascend to the highest office in their companies and take on the attitude that the budget is now their personal slush fund. Not only the rise in indebtedness, but the assumption that all our economic problems are solved by throwing money at them, is evidence of an inexperienced executive.
2. Growing the ranks of middle management. President Obama's use of executive czars is no different than adding more layers of management to a company's staffing chart. Obviously he doesn't know or understand what lean management means. In effect, the czars serve as unaccountable surrogates for the President. This weakens the chief executive officer's position making him more removed from the day-to-day happenings in the organization.
3. Leading by making hard decisions. This is one part of Sensing's post that I found most insightful as he writes about the relationship between Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower.
After
John F. Kennedy was elected, President Dwight D. Eisenhower spent many
hours with him. One of the key lessons was this: "All the decisions you
will make," said Eisenhower, "will be hard decisions." Dwight went on
to explain that the easy things will be tended to by cabinet
secretaries and others of the administration with executive authority.
But the tough ones will always be kicked to higher levels to be
decided. At every level, the decisions become more and more difficult
until, at last, the presidential inbox is filled with nothing but the
most difficult items.
Executive inexperience shows when the executive tries to do too much, tries to be too influential in too many areas, tries to push too many agendas, and consequently fails to maintain command of the big picture. This becomes a picture of a leader without focus or discipline.
From the Iowa caucuses through to today, my impression of Barack Obama is of a talented rhetorician, but not an executive. Unfortunately, making eloquent speeches is really a secondary task of the presidency. It can enhance or detract from the executive responsibilities, but being president is not the same as being the chief spokesperson for the American people.
President Obama will succeed or fail based on his executive abilities, not his politics or his rhetorical skills. He has much to learn, and little time to do so.
HT: Instapundit
Take a view at this Saturday Night Live clip - it perfectly illustrates some of the points you make. Except this is funny.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/obama-address/1163263/
Posted by: Rodney Johnson | October 05, 2009 at 07:46 PM