If you haven’t yet seen US President Barack Obama in action at The Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner and how he responded to accusations by Donald Trump put it on your must do list! It is a work of art!
There are some huge leadership lessons in how the President handled this situation and provides an insight to Barack Obama’s leadership style. As we now know, The President had some major and incredibly sensitive issues he was dealing with at the same time he was dealing with Donald Trump’s accusations, namely activities that led to the death of Osama bin Laden.
On April 30th when the President made his address at the dinner, you would not have even got a sense that one of the biggest political announcements would be made on the 2nd of May. The last thing he needed to be worried about was responding or being bothered with ridiculous accusations about his place of birth. It would have been easy for him to simply ignore or refute the claims.
However, what President Obama chose to do was to respond at the right time, with humour, confidence, dignity and intelligence sending a very clear and poignant message to a pest! You will need to do much better than that to win at my game! It gives you a sense of how a true leader performs under enormous pressure.
What I was incredibly impressed about was how the President handled himself at such a crucial and critical time in his career. This gives an insight into the mindset of a true leader. It also indicates a leader who has a complete and intimate understanding of every facet of his leadership. President Obama is one cool character and this demonstration of leadership is one to be admired and modelled.