When Leadership Goes on Vacation

Without question, one of the greatest leaders in American history was Abraham Lincoln. If you have not read "Team of Rivals", do yourself a favor and read it when you have some free time. It will provide a stark contrast between effective, hard-nosed, courageous leadership and what we have inflicted upon ourselves by electing Barack Obama to the most important and complex executive leadership position in the history of the world.

I am tired of hearing about the bad hand Obama was dealt when he took office. Lincoln did not exactly inherit a basket of fruit when he took office. President Buchanan left a pending disaster when he left office. Having read read several books on Abraham Lincoln, I don't recall him griping about the mess he inherited. That's because Lincoln was a leader. He took the heat when things went wrong. He surrounded himself with talented people and he got things done. He owned the problems. He communicated ideas, solutions, and strategies to a nation torn apart by war. He considered himself president of the entire nation, even the part of the nation in rebellion.

Please contrast this to president Obama. In one of his most inept, self-serving, and shameful speeches ever, on a day when markets across the world were looking for resolute strategies and actionable ideas Obama delivered a blame-shifting, petulant, weak-kneed harangue that further rattled skittish markets.

When Obama took the reigns of power in 2009, he had literally zero leadership experience and zero executive experience. We are paying the price for that now in a big way. I have never led a major public corporation or been a public executive. However, I have held executive leadership positions in small companies and local leadership positions in large companies. This does not make me an expert on executive leadership, but it gives me infinitely more experience than Barack Obama. Here are a few tips for the naive yet condescending "leader" of our nation:

When things get rough, your people look to you for strength. They want a rally point. They want direction. They want to hear what you think and more importantly what you are going to do to make things better.

When things don't go well, leaders take ownership. They take responsibility for the situation at hand, whether they caused it or not. Leaders don't care how we got here, leaders care how we are going to get out of here.

When business or the economy is in the tank, people want assurances that you are in charge, that you understand the problem, and that you have clear and actionable plans to reverse course. People don't care about blame, they aren't interested in the rear view mirror. Employees and citizens are forward looking. They have obligations and responsibilities. They have dreams and aspirations. Passing the buck, making excuses, and blaming others for the current state of affairs does not advance the ball. The opportunity cost of lost time and energy dreaming up blame-game strategies is something real leaders will not pay under any circumstance.

The democrats and republicans all have attack dogs and paid mouth pieces to lead their partisan charges. Barack, you need to let your hired guns do their jobs. Let David Axelrod worry about vilifying the Tea Party, you have work to do and problems to fix. You don't have time to waste worrying about how to make your opponents look bad. (here is a little free advice, republicans are pretty good at making themselves look bad without any help)Instead, you need to figure out what it means to be a leader. You need to bring your on-the-job executive training to an close and start leading this nation. Develop a plan Mr President. Quit passing the buck. Quit attacking the Tea Party. Quit blaming President Bush. You are the president, you are supposed to be leading this nation. We are in trouble, get off your high horse, quit playing the blame game, and fix the problem. (Here's a little more free advice - a thriving economy spins off much more in tax revenues than a shrinking one. Economies don't thrive on government spending. Excessive government spending represents an opportunity cost of capital not being put to its best use. If you don't understand this, go talk to Walter Williams, he will explain it you.)

Barack Obama, you are president of the United States. You are the most important executive in the world. It is time to start acting like it. Your incompetence is crushing us. No one cares whose fault this is. It is time to solve the problem. If you had any executive acumen or leadership experience, you would know this already.

Leaders lead. Politicians assign blame. Which one have you been for the past 3 years? No one gave you this job, you asked for it. It's past time to start doing it like a leader and not like a politician.