Special Report: Leadership Lessons from the President

Special Report: Leadership Lessons from the President


initially didn’t vote for Obama until the final round.

“At times the staff of the Review felt like warring tribes, and he managed to keep them all working together pretty smoothly,” says Berenson, a Washington, D.C.-based partner at global law firm Sidley Austin L.L.P. “He encouraged people to arrive at consensus and forget compromises. He did an amazing job keeping the peace among a group of very fractious personalities and big egos. His political skills in that internal sense were extremely evident, even back then.” Even as Obama chose his cabinet and advisers, his team represents a diversity of backgrounds and ideologies.

Corporate Lesson: As the economy becomes increasingly influenced by global markets, it is crucial that companies embrace a diversity of ideas that will be based on varying influences from culture and social status to politics. The challenge is creating consensus around those diverse and even conflicting ideas.

Check out this story and more in the March issue of Black Enterprise magazine.


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