Lynn Espinoza is a broadcast news veteran with more than a decade of media, presentation and executive coaching experience. She has developed personal coaching sessions for Fortune 100 C-level executives, corporate communicators of all kinds, doctors, lawyers and leaders in non-profit.
What’s a President to do?
Posted on June 14, 2010. Filed under: Latest News 1 Comment
I’ve been listening with interest to the national debate over President Obama’s communication style throughout the oil-spill crisis. For weeks, pundits have been crying that he’s not tough enough. Too much thought; too little action. Then last week, in a pseudo-angry moment, he said he might need to “kick some ass” to keep things moving. For that, he got a real scolding from NPR over the weekend. A three minute editorial depicting his use of “ass” as patently un-presidential. I, frankly, thought both the comment and the editorial were silly. I guess I agree that there are more presidential ways to get a point across, but good Lord – how does he find a medium without being tagged as lukewarm? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
And there is something else on my mind regarding this:
My personal criticism of the president’s style through this crisis draws to light something that comes up often in my training sessions. Recently, the president was down in the gulf talking to the people who are suffering – both emotionally and economically. He spent too much time talking about what he isn’t doing, and what he can’t do. For instance, he said, “I can’t go down there and plug the hole” and, “I can’t suck up the oil with a straw”. Sure, sir, we know that. We also know that the president was speaking metaphorically. However, anytime an executive is talking about what they’re not doing they are missing the opportunity to talk instead about what they are doing. In this case the president – metaphorically or otherwise – painted a picture that lacks vision or progress. It was both uninspired and uninspiring. The country is hungry to hear what is known rather than unknown. We want to hear what he can do rather than what he can’t. Without that, he perpetuates the nothing-but-rhetoric perceptions that plague him today.
One Response to “What’s a President to do?”
Leave a Reply
This is a great post. In following this story I think it’s really puzzling that people – mostly on the right – criticize Obama for “acting too much like a professor.” First, he is a professor (not acting) and second, what’s wrong with that? I think it’s refreshing to have a professor in charge. Then Chris Matthews said he needs to take some cues from comic book heroes. What the hell? Should he put on some tights and don a cape? The kick ass comment came across (to me, anyhow, as someone not in the CT biz) as totally forced. It’s all starting to seem very much like schlocky dinner theater.