HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON THE POLITICAL LEADER 2
Abstract
The purpose of this essay is to assess various scholarly sources pertaining to Hillary Clinton as a political leader, her various leadership roles, and the overall organizational effectiveness of her leadership. While serving as the First Lady of the United States, United States Senator of New York and Secretary of State for President Obama’s first administration, Clinton has proven time and again to be a leader of resilience and authenticity with effective organizational outcomes. Ideally, the leadership behaviors of Hillary Rodham Clinton provide a diverse and broad foundation for identifying specific characteristics of transformational leadership: the ability to listen and communication effectively greatly impacts the behavior and performance of followers; possessing and exercising “smart power” is central to achieving continuous organizational effectiveness; the tested ability to be resilient to circumstance and authentic in self-awareness, problem-solving techniques, and problem-solving methods.
Keywords: Transformational leadership, Smart Power, resilience and authenticity, and organizational effectiveness
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HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON THE POLITICAL LEADER
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Early Childhood and Family Life
II. EDUCATION
B. Wellesley University
C. Yale Law School
III. MARRIAGE
IV. ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, EMPLOYMENT, AND LEADERSHIP ROLES
A. Organizational Effectiveness
B. Family Court Attorney and First Lady of Arkansas
C. First Lady of the United States of America
D. United States Senator
E. United States Secretary of State
V. LEADERSHIP STYLE
A. Transformational Leadership
B. Strengths, Weaknesses and Challenges
V. CONCLUSION
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Introduction
No single leadership method or technique guarantees success will come unceasingly. However, transformational leadership relies on intricate and personal leader-follower relationships that are founded on trust of leader ideology, similar beliefs between leader and follower, unquestioning acceptance, obedience, increased confidence, and common goals (Northouse, 2013). Throughout her professional career, Hillary Rodham Clinton has exemplified traits of transformational, and arguably, may be recognized as the most transformational leader within modern American history (The National First Ladies’ Library [NFLL]).
Childhood and Family Life
Hillary Rodham Clinton was born in 1947 in Chicago and raised in Park City, Illinois by her mother, father, and alongside her two younger brothers. Clinton was born into a blue-collar, conservative family, and she has been involved in the political arena since being a teenager. At the tender age of thirteen, for example, Clinton was canvassing in Chicago for Richard Nixon.
Education
For her first three years of high school, Clinton attended Maine East High where she served on the student council and was accepted into the National Honor Society. Before her senior year began, Clinton transferred to Maine South High where she graduated in the top of her class with honors. She continued interning for political campaigns after graduation until she left Illinois to attend college.
Wellesley University
Hillary Clinton was a Political Science major and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. During her time at Wellesley she served as the President of Wellesley Young
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Republicans, President of Wellesley College Government Association, and interned at the House Republican Conference. Clinton was honored by being the first student at Wellesley University to deliver a commencement speech to the graduating class, which landed her a feature in Life magazine a few months later.
Yale Law School
Clinton decided before attending law school at Yale that she wanted to commit her occupational life to public service work with a fundamental goal of improving human rights for women, children, and families (NFLL, 2009). While at Yale she led an independent research study at the Yale Child Study Center, where she worked, which resulted in her first scholarly publication. She obtained her Juris Doctorate degree in 1973.
Marriage
Hillary met Bill Clinton while attending Yale Law School and the two started dating in 1971. Four years later Hillary moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas after Bill had a failed campaign for the United States House of Representatives seat. The two were wed in 1975 at a private ceremony in their home.
Organizational Effectiveness, Employment and Leadership Roles
Throughout her career, Hillary Clinton has held numerous positions and been in varying leadership roles. In order to analyze and discuss her organizational effectiveness in a business context, we must break down each organizational context where her role has had an impact.
Organizational Effectiveness
According to Shambaugh (2010), Secretary Clinton describes the ability to continuously learn new things and adapt to new situations in order to successfully navigate complex change as
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“Smart Power”. In order to possess “Smart Power”, an individual leader must be curious towards new concepts and open to seeing different views and perspectives (pg. 3, par. 1). Since the beginning of her leadership career, Secretary Clinton has advocated positive, societal change and equality throughout the world.
Family Attorney and First Lady of Arkansas
Soon after moving to Little Rock she became a Staff Attorney at Rose Law Firm, and worked there until quitting and started campaigning full-time for her husband’s gubernatorial campaign. In 1978, after a Clinton victory, Hillary became the First Lady of Arkansas, and it was here that she made her first imprint on the institution of American politics. She has never ceased working tirelessly on transforming the role that women play in American politics and the rest of the world (Shambaugh, 2010).
First Lady of the United States of America
She was notably the only First Lady to have an office in the West Wing of the White House, alongside those serving on the former President’s senior staff. Secretary Clinton and former Attorney General Janet Reno, for example, operated together to create the Department of Justice’s Violence Against Women’s office. Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Secretary Clinton collaborated on a global level to advocate gender equality in economics, employment, health care, and education. By the year 2000, her last year serving as First Lady, Secretary Clinton had arguably transformed the entire position of First Lady of the United States of America. Her record for public service work was astounding compared to her predecessors, and she was soundly prepared to continue her political career as a United States Senator once departing the White House.
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United States Senator
While serving as a United States Senator for New York, Secretary Clinton served on four Senate committees and a total of eight sub committees. Unbelievably, Clinton was able to stay low-key while serving as U.S. Senator New York, and was successfully reelected to a second term. She worked well passing non-partisan legislation and made numerous allies in both parties. It was before her 2006 re-election campaign that she decided to run for President.
United States Secretary of State
As Secretary of State, Clinton’s central public role was leading global conferences and other international meetings on a variety of issues. When she left office in 2012, she was declared the most-traveled Secretary of State in American history. Overall, critics have viewed her time as Secretary of State an overall success with the exception of the Benghazi scandal, which occurred only months before she was set to leave office.
Leadership Style
Transformational Leadership
The leadership characteristics of Hillary Clinton coincide with the transformational approach because she utilizes the connectedness of leader-follower relationships as an opening to build diverse and productive partnerships that are capable of producing collaborative ideas and results for solving the challenges of the 21st century (Shambaugh, 2010). The transformative leader must possess exquisite communication skills due to the fact that relational skills are central to this type of leadership approach; these relational skills equally involve communicating as well as listening (Wolvin, 2005). Shambaugh (2010) applauds Secretary Clinton on her
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devotion to establishing close relations with people from various communities, which has resulted in a dramatic and invaluable web of human networks.
Strengths, Weaknesses and Challenges
Resilient and authentic are words often used to describe Secretary Clinton. Despite being a former suspect during the White Water scandal, serving as the first lady during the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, and failing to secure the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 2008, Secretary Clinton is widely viewed as one of the most popular and prevalent American politicians to date (McCormick, 2011). Yet, despite all of the turmoil and rejection she has faced, her popularity continues to increase, as does her impressive resume of achievements.
At this point in her career, it is obvious that she has proven to be effective at the majority of her leadership positions, regardless of organizational context. Yet, the actions of politicians are rarely met without criticism, and some, if not most, believe that the former First Lady’s work on the President Clinton’s Task Force on Healthcare Reform in 1993 was an organizational failure. The decision made by President Clinton to appoint Secretary Clinton to head the Task Force on Healthcare Reform a mere five days into his Presidency was not received well, and proved to be a dismal political mistake.
Failing to be effective is often as beneficial as succeeding (Northouse, 2013). This is typically because leaders will become stagnant in their approach if new obstacles are not met with innovative alternatives. Our greatest leadership lessons and most significant personal breakthroughs may come only when we take risks (Shambaugh, 2010). Furthermore, our
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professional growth depends simultaneously on our ability to learn from our failures as well as our successes (Shambaugh, 2010).
Conclusion
It is commonly known across leadership studies that even the most prosperous and experienced leaders have failed in the past, and no method or technique exists that guarantees success will come unceasingly (Northouse, 2013). However, a leader must possess the ability to take risks and make decisions if they wish to implement change. Therefore, as this literary piece has assessed, Hillary Clinton exemplifies unyielding capability to directly connect with others for the greater good of human rights, and confront situations viewed as being in conflict with human values in general. In order to be a successful business leader, a leader must be transformational in their ways since organizational context is ever-changing.
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References
The National First Ladies’ Library. (2009). First Lady Biography: Hillary Clinton. New York,
NY: Sage Publishing, Inc.
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Transformational leadership. Leadership. (6th Ed.). (185-217).
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Shambaugh, R. (2010). Leadership secrets of Hillary Clinton. In Forbes.
Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/21/hillary-clinton-leadership-lessons-resilience-forbes-woman-leadership-communication-connection.html.
Wolvin, A.D. (2005). Listening leadership: Hillary Clinton’s listening tour. International
