Advice for Obama's First 100 Days

Taking a page from the playbooks of top corporate leaders, the President-elect should do these six things

By Scott Spreier and John Larrere

With two wars to manage, the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression, and lagging confidence in the nation among its citizenry and around the world, President-elect Barack Obama faces enormously daunting challenges as he prepares to assume his new role.

If he is to make the transition from successful candidate to effective world leader, he must immediately begin thinking and acting in ways that even the most seasoned of senior leaders can struggle to embrace. To that end, he would do well to take a page from the playbooks of some of the best corporate leaders who have successfully steered their organizations through periods of turmoil and change.

Based on our experience at the Hay Group in studying and working with such leaders, we would advise the new President not to wait until his inauguration. He should immediately start taking the following six steps, so that by the end of his first 100 days in office he has established his credibility as a global leader and has begun moving the country forward:

1. Assume a dual leadership role of figurehead and visionary.

Unlike his predecessor, Obama can't merely be the "Decider." He must be viewed as the nation's leader—the face of the country—and he must own both the vision for the country and the responsibility for achieving it. That requires that he first have a vision, not merely the broad-stroked picture he has painted over the course of the past year, but a well-defined, detailed vision that includes what's in it for his various constituencies as well as what he needs from them.

He, not his cabinet, not his broader team of advisers, not his party, must ultimately own the vision and the responsibility for realizing it. Trite as "the buck stops here" may sound, it's worth repeating, given the finger-pointing and blame games that have been going on as of late in the halls of Congress, Corporate America, and even the White House.

2. Create a solid, sustained narrative to "sell" his vision and drive it forward.

Clearly, George Bush had a vision. But he lacked a consistent story line through which to convey that vision. What little narrative he provided was disjointed, reactive, and fear-based sound bites. Certainly the events of 9/11 helped shape his vision. But ultimately the President failed to move the story forward in a way that the country found sufficiently compelling and engaging to "buy" and follow. Nowhere has the lack of a story line been more obvious than during the current economic crisis, for which no true historical precedent exists and for which a plausible narrative has yet to be fully created.

Obama needn't be a Churchillian orator or a folksy storyteller in the mould of Ronald Reagan to communicate effectively with the American people. But he needs to create a narrative around his vision of the country and to tell it in a way that people both at home and abroad can relate to. And, it needs to be a positive story—realistic, certainly, but not of the Chicken-Little genre that tends to paralyze instead of energize.

3. Quickly grasp the scope, complexity, and diversity of his constituencies.

Until now, Obama has faced a diverse but single constituency: the American voter. Now, he must deal with a much broader, more complex set of constituents—from the American public, including those who did not vote for him, to America's enemies. If he is to be effective on the world stage, he must quickly identify these highly diverse constituents and grasp their needs and concerns so that he can build the strong collaborative relationships needed to move his vision forward.

Effective leaders, be they presidents or CEOs, are quick studies and are truly empathetic, which allows them to change their approach as necessary to engage more effectively with others and build strong relationships. We're not talking about pandering and "flip-flopping" but rather an ability to sense the nuanced differences among parties and to adapt one's approach and behavior accordingly.