The Decision-Making Style of Barack Obama

As I said in my previous piece about decision making, what’s essential is the quality of your understanding of the situations in which you find yourself. This is important because we always “decide” (that is, act) in accord with our understanding.

Two things can happen when you are confronted with a problem, especially a new problem. You can either try to fit that problem into your current understanding, flawed though that may be, and act. Or you can step back and recognize that you don’t have enough information or aren’t sure of the consequences of the different courses you might take. In this case, you then gather more information and consider the different paths you might take. Then you choose the one that most closely fits the facts. According to many observers, this characterizes the style and approach of Barack Obama.

In the Newshour review of how Obama makes decisions, one of his mantras is “no drama.” Drama usually comes from taking actions without fully thinking through what might happen. When you do that, it often results in unintended consequences and problems that could have otherwise been prevented. In other words, you create drama, and that’s often not a good thing.

David Mendell, who wrote a biography of Obama, says, “[Obama] would always try to bring all sides of an issue, if there were conflicting sides, into the room, into one room, sit them all down, and try to get them together. He came out what seemed to be with respect from both sides.” He also usually comes out with some consensus among the parties.

David Axelrod, his campaign chairman, says of Obama, “His hallmark, his style of leadership is to try and bring people together. His attitude is, ‘We may disagree on 90 percent of what we want on issues, but on those [other] 10 percent, how do we work together and move things forward?’”

A perfect example of the difference between McCain and Obama is the current debate over the bailout of Wall Street and Main Street now going on. McCain precipitously said he is suspending his campaign until a solution is found and even suggested delaying the long planned first presidential debate in Oxford, MS.

According to news accounts, Obama called McCain and suggested they deliver a joint statement about the crisis. McCain apparently agreed, but within the hour, without telling Obama, he announced the campaign suspension and that he was going to Washington to, in a manner of speaking, “save the day.” This is despite the fact that he had not spoken with either Senator Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee or Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House financial services committee, both of whom Obama had spoken to several times.

In the meantime, Obama issued a statement of principles of what the bailout plan should include. In contrasting what the two candidates did, Obama has remained calm and thoughtful, while McCain has been impetuous and unsure of what to do next.

Here’s how Time Magazine’s Joe Klein describes what’s been going on: “What McCain didn’t understand was that the legislative crisis was already receding when he made his melodramatic—and somewhat wild-eyed—suspension of campaign activities statement. (He didn’t understand this because he has had no input into the process and, indeed, is neither respected for his financial expertise nor desired in the process because of his combative, peremptory negotiating style.)”

Note Klein’s characterization of McCain’s combative and peremptory style in negotiations—not an approach that leads to consensus and definitely a style that leads to, yes, more drama. And as I write this, that is just what is going on, even as an agreement was close, McCain’s decision to interfere has, apparently, muddied the water and taken us further from a resolution of this financial crisis.

One other thing that characterizes good decision making is the ability to learn from your mistakes. Mistakes are when things don’t turn out like you expected and what happened instead was not in your best interest. In a Newshour piece on how Obama deals with adversity, it’s clear that he learns from his mistakes. David Axelrod recalls Obama telling his campaign team after losing two big primaries to Hillary Clinton: “I can think of a dozen things that I did wrong in these last couple of weeks. And I’m sure each of you can think of things that you would have done differently. I don’t want to review that. I want to think about what we’ve learned from this and how it affects what we do moving forward.”

I don’t know about you, but this is the approach to leadership and decision making that engenders confidence in me. As for McCain, everyday, by his actions and remarks, he seems to be—ironically—reinforcing the idea that “John McCain, not ready to lead.”