Vision for the White House: Self-Aware Leadership from the Top Down

Barack Obama has been elected with a mandate for a new kind of leadership. Here's my vision of the type of leadership framework needed to enable President Obama and his executive team to achieve the many important goals in the years ahead:

1. There is tremendous candor, trust, and healthy conflict among the Obama executive team.
2. They are responsible for how their own beliefs drive their behavior, decisions, and results as leaders.  They challenge their own—and each other’s— beliefs in order to change outcomes.
3. They listen to the American People, each other, foreign heads-of-state, and others with open minds and hearts. They have a deep curiosity and open-mindedness to ideas, learning, and translating those into systemic change.
4. When they fail or make mistakes they admit them openly, make amends as appropriate, learn from them, and then apply the lessons-learned. 
5. They create transparent goals and progress measures, and share those openly with the world.
6. They are personally accountable for their impact on others, our community, and on the world overall.
7. They put the greater good of the world and that of the American People ahead of their political or personal needs or wants. 
8. They lead with great ethics, honesty, humility, integrity, and courageous authenticity of heart and mind.
9. They are driven, work hard, and committed to achieve.
10. They balance fierce realism with inspiring vision at all times.

Truly great leaders not only have most or all of these characteristics, but they inspire us to find them in ourselves by challenging our own beliefs and actions.

Finally, continue to be audacious.  Few things are more vital to the kind of transforming leadership our country so sorely needs.

David Peck