Transformational leaders are good at driving organizational change. They motivate followers to work for idealized goals and go beyond their own self-interest for the sake of the organization. (Penn State). All transformational leaders are charismatic, and as such they have a strong affect on their followers who identify with the leader, they become emotionally involved with the leader’s goal, and gain confidence in the goal’s achievements (Northouse, 2013). President Obama, as a presidential campaigner, acted as a transformational and charismatic leader.
Obama learned how to drive organizational change since early in his career. In the 80’s President Barack Obama worked as a community organizer in the Roseland, a low-rise housing project called Altgeld Gardens where he said that he received the best education he ever had (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/magazine/obama-poverty.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). The role of the community organizer is to enable people to gather to advocate and secure the attainment of specific goals. A community organizer has the job of educating its followers. He helps them understand that those problems have an aspect of power, and from this understanding he helps the community to mobilize to achieve change (http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/tcn/valocchi.htm).
By understanding what the job of a community organizer is, we can better understand Obama’s motivations and why he said about his experience working in Reseland and Altgeld Gardens that he “received the best education I ever had” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/magazine/obama-poverty.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). The skills Obama acquired as a community organizer helped Obama to organize his campaign as successfully as he did. That experience helped him to organize his followers to volunteer for his campaign. He motivated his leaders to act as change agents (Penn State). We could assume this was a consequence of his strong desire to influence others, his self-confidence and dominance, all personal characteristics of a charismatic leader (Penn State). He emotionally appealed to his followers with a positive attitude through strong speeches. And he motivated voters to share his vision as only a good transformational leader could do (Penn State). And through his work and the work of his followers he achieved success, while his followers felt they did too.
Many describe President Obama as a charismatic leader, considering charisma as a trait. However, he is not only charismatic but also transformational with some defined characteristics. According to the transformational theory, rhetorical and organizational skills, as many behaviors, can be taught and learned (Penn State). As he previously stated, he learned many of those skills. But, President Obama has a strong need for affiliation and a higher need for power (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-personality-analyst/200905/does-president-obama-have-the-motivation-succeed). Perhaps, the reason why he became the leader of the country was because these two underlying qualities or traits drove him to behave the way he did.
People motivated by power need to influence others to direct, guide, reward or punish them. On the other hand, they have a need for affiliation that generates desires to unify people and reach out (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-personality-analyst/200905/does-president-obama-have-the-motivation-succeed) President Obama seems to have all these components. He unified and influenced people across the entire country to work on his campaign, and even reached people from the Republican party (http://www.policymic.com/articles/10088/the-reason-i-will-abandon-the-republican-party-and-vote-for-obama-in-election-2012). He used powerful and influential speeches such as his “A More Perfect Union” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU) to unify people. And he guided his followers to organize and mobilize. The campaign used “20th-century tools for tracking public opinion” (http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/508836/how-obama-used-big-data-to-rally-voters-part-1/) and his followers volunteered all over the country spreading Obama’s message through different kinds of media technology to bring him to success. I met many of his followers, people so motivated to work for idealized goals and go beyond their own self-interest (working long hours for free) for the sake of the organization. Only a great transformational charismatic leader would accomplish success in that manner (Penn State).
Reference:
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (5th edition). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
Penn State World Campus (2012). PSYCH 485 Lesson 6: Contingency and Path Theories. Retrieved on August 30, 2012, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa12/psych485/002/content/10_lesson.html.