Condoleezza Rice By: Lauren Williams October 1, 2007

Leadership Traits/Skills Dr. Rice portrays such leadership traits as intellectual agility, velvet glove forcefulness. She also possesses persuasiveness, a skill that has followed her throughout her career, especially when dealing with foreign affairs and talking to foreign leaders.

Strengths and Weaknesses A strength that Condoleezza possess is her ability to persuade. When talking to foreign leaders about the use of democracy she does not lecture them, she simply gives them the facts and tells them of the importance of democratic reform. Most leaders do not like to be lectured, so persuasiveness is considered a great tool. One of Condi’s weaknesses is SHOES!!

Behavior/Situation An Israeli official notes that in private negotiating sessions, Rice has a very clever way of pushing hard on a subject even if only to evoke a vague agreement. This was also the one of the leadership traits mentioned previously which was her velvet glove forcefulness. Yes, her behavior was appropriate, because this is how we start to elicit and bring about change. With just a little push we can get something as small as a vague agreement between leaders.

Issues of Ethical Leadership Despite Bush’s decision making, especially those decisions that were not so good, Rice continues to stick around. Some ask the question why does she continue to stay in his administration and forget loyalty. Where does the right and wrong factor play a part? “There is circumstantial evidence that Bush 41 encourage Bush 43 to hide any guilt or remorse when faced with the tears and pain of the families of the 9-11 victims; one where he had to sit among those mourning those that died, knowing the truth of what had taken place and the reason thereof.” “Foreign military powers confirmed that the U.S. was woefully inadequate on 9-11 in monitoring the domestic air and sea lanes.

Supporting Leadership’s Behavior While teaching, during her early years at Stanford, her favorite method of teaching was role playing. She would have her students re-enact a decision making policy. This allowed her students to really see how much it takes to make a decision in politics. This example exhibits her leadership trait of intellectual agility. This kept her students interested and on their toes.

Why Condi is Famous One of her former students stated, “She is knowledgeable without being close-minded, prestigious without being pompous, and her lectures were complex without being dry Also she was active in the community. She doesn’t hide her light under a bushel. She’s very straightforward. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s a Soviet specialist.

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