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A Servant Leadership Analysis

Decent Essays

Michelle’s life embodies the idea of a person who has the x-factor, she shows that leadership is something that is developed over time and learned through experiences. The x-factor is when individuals in a society spark creativity, it is a multi-discipline that borrows and synthesis existing intellectual resources to generate new ones and approach causation. (Burns, 2003). Michelle is a prime example of the ideals of the x-factor that crates a leader. As Burn discusses the difference between transactional and transforming leadership, one can place Mrs. Obama into the category of transforming. “To transform something is to cause a metamorphosis in form or structure, a change in the very condition or nature of a thing” (Burns 2003, p.24). …show more content…

Obama would down play her political and professional credentials to emphasize her importance of being a mother and wife. Michelle holds family as a principal value that is close to her heart, it only right that she advocate for it. “Mrs. Obama has identified her primary role in the White House as ‘Mom-in-Chief’” (Kahl, 2009, p.2). Often times Michelle explicitly shows this to the world by her way of servant leadership, and believing in social actions, exercising your social responsibilities (Natalle & Simon, 2015). Wren describes a servant leader as one who is a servant first, someone who has a natural desire to serve first (1995). When Michelle’s husband was elected into office, she became first lady of one of the most powerful countries in the world giving her a greater opportunity to serve the people. As Kahl states Michelle “has adopted a generalized advocacy for the welfare of families, serving as a symbol of the complexities of contemporary motherhood (Kahl, 2009, p.1). By starting with her own family and branching out to the families in this country she was able to exercise her value of giving back to the people, helping them not only to survive but to thrive (Bond, 2012). Her love of service became a powerful motivator in her leadership, with the potential of having those that she served becomes servant leaders themselves (Wren, 1995, p. …show more content…

The Let’s Move Campaign is a “three part health campaign for kids that include exercise effort; a parallel campaign to reduce childhood obesity and simultaneously increase healthy eating; and the White House Kitchen Garden as a physical demonstration of healthy food” (Natalle & Simon, 2015, p.61). In her leadership Michelle uses wrens 5 C’s of historical analysis; Change, causation, context, character, and connections. The change that was happening was the rise in childhood obesity, the cause had a variety of factors, such as poor diet, low levels of exercise and so on. As wren quotes from Gaddis “Causes always have context, ad to know the former we must understand the later” (Wren, 2011, p.69). Michelle, as a character, had an understanding of her context and that is why she found it necessary to start this campaign. Other charters were involved in the grand process to obtain a mark on history. Lastly the concept of connections, by observing patterns Michelle was able to find ways to combat the context of the situation at hand. This interpretation derived the

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