Contents:

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………..……..3

John F. Kennedy – the background and the path to success……………………….......3

Leadership capabilities of John F. Kennedy..…………………………………….……5

1. Leadership strengths……………………………………………….………………5 2. Leadership weaknesses.……………………………………………………………6 3. Emotional intelligence .……………………………………………………………7

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………….…7

References ………………………………………………………………………....…..8

1. Introduction

This work’s aim is to show leadership capabilities of great man – John F. Kennedy. He was the 35th President of U.S.A., the youngest and very modern. After his tragic death, his legend is still alive and his influence on American life and politics was seen for a long time. This paper will provide analysis of how Kennedy’s leadership style and present how successful leader he was.

2. John F. Kennedy – the background and the path to success

John F. Kennedy’s way to Presidency started in 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he was born as the second son of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. The Kennedy family was reach, Joseph Kennedy was successful businessman, Rose’s father, John Fitzgerald, was the mayor of Boston.(Ratma, 2002)
Both Joseph and Rose expected from their children to achieve a lot, especially from sons. Parents believed that all citizens should serve their country and being politician is the most honorable way of doing that. They pay attention to education and they can afford for sending their children to the best elite schools. At the age of thirteen John F. Kennedy (called JFK) was sent to the Catholic school for boys located fifty miles away from home. He had to deal with loneliness and homesick, this experience from childhood strengthened him and helped to shape his future character. From a childhood JFK suffered from different illnesses and as a consequence he spent a lot of time in hospitals or in isolation, during this time he developed his love of reading. When his father was appointed for U.S. Ambassador in London, JFK came to London for summer to work in his office. He also spent some months on touring European countries. Time spent in Europe had deep impact on young Kennedy, especially that there was very serious threat of World War II and John could experience solemnity of situation. In 1940 Kennedy graduated from Harvard and published a book “Why England slept?” being the result of his own observation of England’s actions in the time preceding World War II. The book was bestseller in United States and John became popular person. After that Kennedy enrolled business course at Stanford University, he continued the process of shaping his leadership skills, which made him a man known in the history. (Anderson 2004)
In 1941 Kennedy joined the U.S. Navy and was commanding power torpedo boats. In 1943 his boat was rammed and destroyed by the Japanese ship, in this situation John showed his courage when he was leading other people to swim to the island, where the rescue came. For this heroic behavior he was awarded by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Medal. This incident became very popular when Kennedy was President, many books, articles; movies or TV specials describing this issue were published underlining his role. (www.presidentprofiles)
After the end of World War II, Kennedy was considering what he should do in his professional life, first he wanted to be a journalist, especially that his debut of writer was very successful. Finally, he had chosen the career of politician, thereby fulfilling the wish his father. Supported by whole family and ably using his people skills, Kennedy became congressman of Democratic Party for the next six years. He was popular politician; people liked him and perceived him as handsome, intelligent and charming war hero. Deeply touched by the sudden death of his favorite sister Kathleen, he decided to change his life and make real difference in the world (www.britannica.com). He decided to run for senator and succeeded in this.
In 1953 he married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, who played very important role in his political and private life. From the childhood time, John had constantly suffered from illnesses and back pain, the problem was very serious but after operations and long convalescence he came back to work. Kennedy was extraordinary example of person perfectly using and organizing his time, during the sickness he wrote the book “Profiles in Courage” describing Senators risking their career standing up for their beliefs. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Working as senator, Kennedy started to interest in world problems and was turning into the star of Democratic Party, and in consequence was nominated as Democratic candidate for President. He asked his main opponent Senator Lyondon B. Johnson to become his Vice Presidential candidate. It was very clever and tactic move, because Kennedy needed Johnson’s support in the South in order to win (http://en.wikipedia.org).
At the beginning Kennedy had to fight with many prejudices, like his Catholicism (he was the firs Catholic President), his young age, and lack of background as Governor or Manager. At that time Republican Party was very popular, Kennedy had to find potential problems for the purpose of his campaign. He won the TV debate with Nixon, appearing to people as handsome, young, relaxed, competent, modern and with good sense of humor.
In his program he was focusing on economy, Cuba, missile gap, space program of Soviet Union, civil rights movements. His program “New Frontier” was including the vision of future changes necessary for making America the strong country in the world threaten by communism. (Pastusiak 1998).
Finally Kennedy won with Nixon, but the percentage difference was very small (49,7 % to 49,5%). He was the 35th President of U.S. During his inaugural speech Kennedy said very famous words which were quoted many times: “…my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country” (www.famousquotes.me.uk). Kennedy’s foreign policy was influenced by relations with Soviet Union, Cold War, military support for Israel and problems with Cuban regime.
During his presidency as a result of wrong decisions some dangerous situations occurred which could lead to the political or even military problems. One of these situations was the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, which aim was to overthrow Fidel Castro regime. Unfortunately, the mission did not succeed, exiles involved in action were killed or captured and after long negotiations, America had to spend significant amount for their release. The reason of failure was the lack of communication among military leadership and wrong organization. (Ratma ,2002)
The invasion in Cuba led to another difficult situation. In order to protect Cuba against possible future attacks, U.S.R.R. supporting Castro’s regime had installed ballistic missile site there. It was serious threat for the national security of U.S. Military leaders pushed Kennedy to attack the site from air, but President was aware that consequences of that move could led to nuclear war, ordered naval quarantine and inspection of all ships arriving in Cuba. In the same time he began negotiations with The Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba on condition that U.S. promised never to invade Cuba and remove missiles from Turkey. It was Kennedy’s success that the problem was solved in peace, but it showed that the danger of nuclear war is really close.
The Cuban Missile Crisis made Kennedy to seek new opportunities to finish Cold War. On June 1963 at American University he gave one of the most important speeches of his presidency. He underlined that America is interested in the end of Cold War and in peace and proposed to start the process of disarmament and banning of nuclear test in atmosphere. This speech was appreciated by Khrushchev, who told that it was “the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt”. (www.presidentprofiles.com)
President was supporting civil rights movements in country, what made him unpopular in Texas
Kennedy’s career was suddenly interrupted on November, 22, 1963 in Dallas, when during his political trip to Texas he was shot. (Schlesinger, 2002)
Although the presidency of John F. Kennedy is variously assessed by experts, all of them underline his charisma, leadership capabilities and his influence on subsequent generations.
In the following chapters I will try to analyze Kennedy’s leadership features and provide the explanation of his timeless phenomenon.

3. Leadership capabilities of John. F. Kennedy

The theory of leadership has been studied and developed from years by various researchers. All researchers are trying to find the answer what traits and capabilities effective leaders should possess.
Kouzes and Posner (2002) found out that successful leaders followed the model called The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership, which includes from the following stages:
- Model the Way
- Inspire a Shared Vision
- Challenge the Process
- Enable Others to Act
- Encourage the Heart.
Authors underlined that each leader should have a vision or dream, in which he believe and abilities to change the vision into reality. Innovations and changes are challenging for leaders, the experiments and potential risk are the steps for achieving the goals. Leaders have to inspire others to follow them, they should be aware of the importance of teamwork and competences and strength of the particular members.
Burns (1978) identified two types of leadership; transactional and transformational. Transactional style is more traditional and relies on motivation by making series of exchanging agreements; transformational is focused on deeper relationships, where leader and followers are involved in the process of achieving and satisfying the higher values. (Bernard M., Bass, Ronald E. Riggio 2006).
Bass and Avolio (1998) developed and precised Burn’s leadership styles and proposed classification including three leadership types: transactional, transformational and laissez-faire. (Mary L. Tucker et all)

John F. Kennedy is a perfect example of transformational leader, who significantly changed the former administrative model of presidency into modern and dynamic one.
Although political science authors do not assess Kennedy’s presidency very highly, he is one of most popular president of all time.

Following the literature describing John F. Kennedy’s private and professional life and my own reflections I was able to identify his leadership strengths and weaknesses.

3.1. Leadership strengths

1. Charisma – this feature is the first to be associated with Kennedy. Charisma is the kind of magnetism that attracts others to the leader and Kennedy was the first politicians who perfectly take advantage from his own and exceptional style. Kennedy’s biographer, Geoffrey Perret, (2002) even described him as the first celebrity president.
2. Extraordinary popularity – he learned to manage his public image using mass media, put impact on the role of political debates in TV, in which he performed as a leader. He became known very early, when he published his first book, then step by step he became more and more popular.
3. Communications skills – Kennedy was spontaneous, natural, smiling and joking with public and it caught people. In fact, he was always so smooth; he learned that by practicing and achieved perfection. He was the first president who organized live press conferences. He was very talented speechwriter; he tried to use short clauses and words and simply construction in order to deliver clear message to the audience. He often used word “we” what proved that he identified with common people and they felt stimulated to action. He was able to find the words most suitable to the situation e.g. in Berlin he said “ I am the Berliner”, other example of good ‘‘Let us not emphasize all on which we differ, but all we have in common. Let us not consider what we fear separately, but what we share together’’. (Barnes J., (2005)
4. Elite education and experience – His parents took care of education and he was sent to the best schools. He grew up in the atmosphere of patriotism and public mission. He was the youngest President and was able to convert his youth and lack of experience in his advantages and convince people. For all the time he was supported by his family, what positively influence on his self confidence and desire of achievements.
5. Vision – it is another crucial element of leadership. Everything starts from the vision which appears in leader’s mind and which is presented to the people in order to show where their efforts will be directed. Kennedy’s vision of new America was included in New Frontier program with the main catchword “Get America Moving Again” (Pastusiak L, 1998) He wanted strengthen U.S. political and economical position in the world, stop the communism.
6. Breaking the rules – effective leader should be brave in presenting new solution, searching new ways of solving problem, changing the world and environment. From the childhood John F. Kennedy was encouraged to challenge authority or to break the rules and this trait was moving with him throughout his life. (Barnes, 2005). Kennedy’s political idol – Winston Churchill was also perceived as this one who turns many ideas upside down. Kennedy was not following the traditional way like his political rivals, he took different way which brought him to success earlier than their opponents. Such an attitude gave him courage to present unpopular ideas like civil rights for black Americans, end of discrimination. He was able to change impossible thing into real and achieve goals.
7. Support from family and loyal staff – Kennedy has excellent team building skills, he inspired his team and the team gave him its loyalty. His brother Robert was the most faithful and trustworthy person.

3.2. Leadership weaknesses

Although Kennedy had a lot of excellent leadership skills, he was not perfect in each area. He was aware of some of his weaknesses, but he had never been overwhelmed by them.
Kennedy usually tried to turn his disadvantages into pluses and deal with problems smoothly.

He admitted that he was not good at economy and business but he consulted decisions in this area with experts, what change it into advantage.

As the beginner he was not experienced in global policy. Anticommunist obsession led him sometimes to wrong decisions and some of his actions were very risky and could have dangerous consequences, like nuclear war or military conflict with Cuba or the U.S.R.R.
He was also blamed for the start of military escalation in Vietnam, which ended with war.
His instable policy in the East increased alarming reactions of various West countries.

On the other side he was flexible and when he saw that situation was dangerous, was able to changed decision easily and search for alternative method of solving problem.
He was not always consequent in his policy; sometimes he changed his mind and made decisions which were more suitable for him in the particular situation. During campaign he promised to end discrimination of Black people, but then he postponed actions for long years.
The main Kennedy’s weakness was that he was addicted to sex; the number of love affairs was significant.
His lovers were among European aristocrats and American film stars like Marilyn Monroe or Greta Garbo. He had also contacts with prostitutes found on the streets and with White House's staff. (Barnes, 2005)

3.3. Emotional intelligence

Following D. Goleman theory, the effective leader should have high degree of emotional intelligence. It is crucial feature of a great leader; other elements like plenty of ideas, analytical mind, and best training mean nothing without emotional intelligence. Goleman indicated five components of emotional intelligent which are: self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills.
Analyzing John F. Kennedy example we can see passionate young man with strong desire to learn and develop, aware of his strengths and weaknesses. He had rather high level of self awareness, he was aware of his values and goals and when he realized that made mistake admitted that and searched for solution. He had not problem to laugh from himself.

His motivation was on very high level, he had strong passion to work and achieve goals, he was perceived as optimistic person.
Other components like empathy and social skills were developed on proficiency level, those features allowed him to have so many followers and being so popular among people. He understood people needs and was able to give them solutions they expected. He was also perfectly creating networks and managing relationships with others.

The weakest element of his emotional intelligence was self-regulation. Sometimes he acted before thinking, what caused some political problems; his love affairs also proved that he did not control all instincts.

4. Conclusion

John F. Kennedy’s presidency is not highly rated by political experts but even his opponents admit that he was the man who broke the rigid rules and conventions existing in the policy of those times. Kennedy gave the example of modern presidency, he was pioneer of leadership style analyzed by researchers and recommended nowadays. He was charismatic, transformational leader loved and followed by many people. Even today his example of leadership capabilities could be studied by business executives. A study of the leadership literature written a long time after his death provide descriptions, classifications and advises of actions which were realized by Kennedy in his professional career. Although some used to say that he was the spoilt son of wealthy parents whose success was predictable, they are not right. They were many young intelligent men in that time, but only Kennedy became the youngest President of U.S. the idol for many people and even icon of this era. He worked hard to achieve the success, had clear vision of his future and broke the rules which stopped others. He liked to say that great journeys began with small steps.
Analysis of Kennedy’s case prove that he had very high level of emotional intelligence, currently treated as crucial for being effective leader. He pursued in practice this idea before it was investigated and described by D. Goleman.
Although he did not avoid mistakes in his private and professional life, he was successful and effective leader, good example for leadership studies nowadays.

5. References:

- Anderson C. C. (2004) Presidential Leaders- John F. Kennedy, Learner Publications Company - Barnes J., (2005) John F. Kennedy on Leadership Amacom - Bernard M. Bass, Ronald E. Riggio (2006) Transformational leadership Lawrance Erlbaum Associated, Inc - Geoffrey Perret, (2002) Jack: A Life Like No Other is a book like no other, Random House - Kouzes J. M., Posner B. Z., (2002) Leadership Challenge, Third Edition, Jossey Bass - Pastusiak L.(1998) Prezydenci, Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza,Warszawa - Schlesinger Jr. A.M. (2002) A thousand days. John F. Kennedy in the White House, Mariner Books - Ratma L., (2002) Profiles of the Presidents – John F. Kennedy, Compass Point Books - Mary L. Tucker, Anne M. McCarthy, M. Colleen Jonem [1999] Women and men politicians: are some of the best leaders dissatisfied Leadership & Organization Development Journal 20/6 285- 290

- http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Kennedy-Bush/John-F-Kennedy-Foreign-affairs.html ( entered: 11th June, 2010)

- http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/314791/John-F-Kennedy ( entered: 9th June, 2010)

- http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/John_F_Kennedy/5.htm ( entered: 9th June, 2010)

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy