The Leadership Qualities of President George W. Bush

This paper will discuss the leadership qualities of a prominent individual. It will specifically focus and highlight the leadership traits as exhibited by President George W. Bush using the trait theory. It will try to apply and place upon this person of interest the attributes and characteristic of the said theory .

President George Bush can be describe using the trait theory since this theory advocates that there are traits and characteristics that are intrinsic to a person that helps him to be a leader. First of all, the present president possesses leadership qualities like self-confidence, intelligence and responsibility. When he was still young, he went to Yale University and succeeded in obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in History while becoming a member of the secretive society called Skulls and Bones, a fraternity that welds immense influence and power (Hughes, 2005). He then attended Harvard Business School, where he earned his Masters of Business Administration (MBA) in 1975 becoming the first President to hold an MBA (Hughes, 2005). He also joined the Texas Air National Guard and flew F-102 fighter jets.

After graduation, George Bush returned to Texas to enter the oil business. Bush ran, or was a partner in a number of oil companies, including Arbusto Energy, Spectrum 7, and the Harken Energy Corporation (Fieldman, 2002). In 1964 and 197, he helped his father in campaigning for a Senate seat. He again entered the political circle as a political director for an Alabama senate campaign. Bush ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978 (Fieldman, 2002). After working on his father’s successful 1988 presidential campaign, Bush bought a share in the Texas Rangers baseball franchise and in April 1989, he became the managing general partner (Fieldman, 2002).

Aside from these achievements, George Bush was also charismatic, integrity and dominance. In the televised Republican presidential debate held in Des Moines, Iowa on December 13, 1999 where all of the participating candidates were asked with the question “Who is the political philosopher or thinker do you most identify with and why?” While other candidates mentioned past presidents and prominent political figures, Bush responded that the most important philosopher in his life was Christ since Christ changed his soul (Kessler, 2004).

During his Presidency, Bush has also hosted celebrations at the White House for non-Christian holidays such as Ramadan (Kessler, 2004). The charisma of the president can be seen when he addressed the troops and the American people in the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln while wearing a flight suit. In his speech, he stated that all armed conflict in Iraq has ceased and that the U.S. troops were successful in deposing and capturing Saddam Hussein (Thompson, 2003). To further strengthen himself as a leader, he surrounded himself with persons and individuals that would clearly support him and advise him in certain issues and topics. Among the person he trust are his father, George H. W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Condolezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Harriet Miers and Karl Rove (Thompson, 2003).

Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com