Reflection Post

Reflection Post:

Today’s class was interesting and I was especially intrigued by the opening debate about American leadership during the Arab Spring. We confronted the issues that the President himself had encountered and I agree with most of the class that President Obama’s ‘hard power’ inducement for Mubarak to stand down was too public, too aggressive, and too rushed. In the New York Times article, Obama’s senior advisers criticized him for neglecting relationships with Arab leaders, and in my opinion creating and maintaining those types of relationships within the Arab region is crucial to remaining in alliance with countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Israel, and of course Egypt. President Obama cannot afford to have such impersonal relationships with other world leaders, because it will be harder to further the U.S.’s agenda and to accomplish what needs to be accomplished in the Arab region.

I also wanted to touch upon the lecture about transactional and transformational leadership and the question, “Can transactional leadership generate transformational change?” The answer is yes. Transactional leaders can use different modes of transactional style to achieve transformational objectives. Transactional leaders can use hard power to get what they want from followers, in order to achieve a greater good that would benefit both that leader and transformational objectives, as was the case with Lyndon B. Johnson and the ‘Great Society.’ Overall, it was a very interesting lecture, but the break was way too late in the class and my attention span was wavering…and, the slides were way too fast.