QUESTION 1 Would you agree that president John F Kennedy leadership role is irrelevant in shaping the outcome of the

crisis as he has no control over the reactions to the situation. He unable to be the heroic leader doing all the innovation to resolve the situation but on the contrary has to collaborate with various pressure groups in developing consensus on the right course of action to be taken. Support your answer by quoting instances that either support or reject this view.

I do agree that President John F Kennedy leadership role is irrelevant in shaping the outcome of the crisis as he has no control over the reactions to the situation. He unable to be the heroic leader doing all the innovation to resolve the situation but on the contrary has to collaborate with various pressure groups in developing consensus on the right course of action to be taken. There are many roles that can be classified as part of leadership function of management that John F Kennedy can use to be a good leader. But first, leadership can be defined as the ability to inspire other people and gain support among others to achieve the organizational goals. The first role is figurehead as a leader, which is high ranking manager, to spare the time to get involved in the ceremonial activities to be socialized with other people. There are four specific behavior that figurehead should have. Firstly is to entertain customers as an official representative of the organization. Secondly is to make them self available to the outsiders as a representative of the organization. Next is to serve as an official representative of the organization at gatherings outside the organization and lastly, to escort official visitors. Secondly, when a manager acts as a spokesperson, the emphasis is on answering the letter or inquiries and formally reporting to individuals and groups outside the manager direct organizational unit. As a spokesperson, the managerial leader keeps five groups of people informed about the units activities, plans, capabilities, and possibilities that is upper-level management, clients or customers, other important outsiders, professional colleagues, and the general public. Dealing with the outside groups and general public is usually the responsibility of top-level managers. Thirdly, negotiator that is part of almost any manager job description is trying to make deals with others for needed resources. Researchers have identified three specific negotiating activities that is bargaining with superior for funds, facilities, equipment, or other forms of support. Second, bargaining with other units in the organization for the use of staff,

facilities, equipment, or other forms of support and lastly is to bargaining with suppliers and vendors for services, schedules, and delivery times. Forth is coach and motivator. An effective leader takes the time to coach and motivate team members, and sometimes to inspire large groups of people inside the organization. This role includes five specific behaviors. Firstly, they informally recognize team members achievements. Secondly, they provide team members with feedback concerning ineffective performance. Next, they ensured that team members are informed of steps that can improve their performance. Next, they implementing rewards and punishments and sustain good performance. Lastly, they inspired people through such means as being charismatic, creating visions, telling interesting stories, and being highly ethical Besides that, there are also other role that effective leader should have; the role is team builder. The objective is to build an effective team. The team builder must ensure that the team members are recognized for their accomplishments. Leader also need to initiate activities that contribute to group morale besides holding staff meeting to encourage team members to talk and discuss about their accomplishments, problems and things related to their works, An effective leader also must be a good strategic planner. The top-level manager should expert in strategic planning and assists the input throughout the organization. By doing this, leader can practice strategic leadership. Specific activities involves in this role included setting a vision and direction for the organization and providing innovative ideas to pursue. The leader also need to helping the firm deal with the outside environment and helping develop organizational policies. Leader also must act as a team player. It is related to the team builder role that is the team player that displaying appropriate personalities, ability to cooperate with other units in the organization. Next, they also need to display their loyalty to superiors by fully support the decisions and plans. Leader also must have technical problem solving skills. It is important for supervisors and middle managers to help team members to solve the problems. The leader can act as a technical expert, or adviser and also performing individual contributor on related tasks. As a conclusion, leadership is needed at all levels in an organizational and can be practice in event related and every ones have the potential to be a good leader.

QUESTION 2 Leadership effectiveness is dependent on the leaders ability to understand and recognize that follower differ in talent and motivation. The Level of Engagement Continuum classifies followers on the one hand to be feeling and doing nothing and at the other being passionately committed and deeply involved. How far do you think President Kennedy has been able to ensure that the level of engagement from the team is constructive and able to assist him in arriving at the right decision? Do you feel that the influence of the war mongers has been contained to ensure that the safety of the world is ensured?

The meaning of leadership is ability to inspire and stimulate others to achieve worthwhile goals and ability to inspire confidence and support among the people who are needed to achieve organizational goals. Based on Thirteen Days, the goal is to avoid the war at all cost implemented by President Kennedy. The leader portrayed in this case study is the US President, John F Kennedy while the group members are his high officials in the government. Framework of leadership are situation, follower and leader had shown in this case study in order to claim peace between two countries. The power between leader and group members is approximately balanced as shown as in the story. President Kennedy has made a decision of no war at all cost while him been surrounding different opinions and decisions by his government officials especially the Joint Chiefs of Staffs and the National Security Council (NSC) to launch an air strike in order to wipe out the nuclear threat. Strategic planner represent by him shows a significant personality in leadership traits. He knew that if he had agreed to the decision of the Joint Chiefs to carry out a massive air strike followed up by an invasion of Cuba, the action would bring consequences to the US. All of us know the cost of the lives that could be lost. He has chosen to blockade on shipments movement approaching Cuba to prevent any offensives weapons from getting into Cuba. If the plan fails, a full strike would be launch by the US as suggested by the Joint Chiefs. He put himself in the shoes of others to predict what the best option he had.

Autocratic leadership also been played by him if the situation is getting worse. He has the power to do that because he is the President of United States but he never decides hastily or emotionally. He would listen from his committee members to indicate what they have in their mind despite of his own decision. . He then improvise and further inquires on their options and suggestions, going through the pros and cons in the short term and even long term period. They are five types of followers which are isolates, bystanders, participants, activists, and diehards. A leader is nothing without his followers. In this case study, it is observed that President Kennedy is surrounded by activists and diehards. Consider a normal scene surrounding the most important person in the US government. Diehard followers such as General Curtis LeMay who insisted on launching an air strike to deal with the nuclear threat is willing to go around the president in order to achieve his own cause. He completely feels his decision is perfect and better than the president and provokes the other generals to support him in his act of war. That is common mind processing for the military person such as him as the Chief of the US Air Force. LeMay called the peaceful resolution of the crisis made by President as the greatest defeat in our history. An activist such as Robert Strange McNamara shows full support to the president. He feels strongly for the vision of the president and did everything he could to help the president to reach his goals. Based on the elaboration above, that shows how the President leads the US government by his personality and encouragement in decision making procedure. War mongers has been contained to ensure the safety of world is remains stable. A consensus leader, President Kennedy decides upon of the agreement of his fellow committees, he was forced to take an autocratic decision in order to remain calm of the peace between Russia and United States. His firm personality keeps his stand until to the end of the crisis with no war at all cost and succeeded in avoiding from World War I being repeated. With that, war mongers will ensure because the crisis solved without any war.

QUESTION 3 Crisis leadership is the process of leading group members through a sudden, largely unanticipated, intensely negative, and emotionally draining circumstance. What attributes and behavior did Kennedy show for effective crisis management? President John F Kennedy had shown a few attributes and behavior for effective crisis management including the normative decision model. It views leadership as a decision making process which mean the leader examines certain factors within the situation to determine which decision will be the most effective. There are five decision making styles which reflects different angle of participation by members. The styles are to decide, consult individually, consult in group, facilitate and delegate. In the Thirteen Days, the by consult individually is shown by Kennedy as the leader presents the problem to the group members individually, gathers the opinions and suggestions and next to make the decision. Kennedy always seek for opinions from his special assistant, Kenneth P. O Donnell. The situation occur when he want to make decision on method to handle the crisis of the missiles placing in Cuba by Soviet Unions. ODonnell next is giving his opinion to President Kennedy. Kennedy also do the consult in group when he present the problem to the group members in meeting, gathering the opinions and next making the decisions. The other example is In White House mansion in Oval Room, Kennedy meets his EXCOM members to discuss about how to handle the Soviet Unions. His EXCOM members had been suggested three option to avoid Soviets from launched his missiles. It is naval quarantine by Dean Rusk(Secretary of State), air strike by John McCone (Director of Central Intelligence Agency) and cut a deal by Adlai Stevenson (U.S Ambassador to the U.N). Next, Kennedy is also a rational person. It is clearly shown when he able to manage the different pressure groups in the White House and the National Security Council (NSC). There are conflict between the generals which is General Curtis Le May (Air Force Chief of Staff) and General Maxwell Taylor (The Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff). The Le May asked for an order from the President to carry out he air strike, while General Taylor said that the army are not ready yet because they just begun the mobilization under cover of a prearranged exercise so, they are looking for another week and a half. The President are not very confident with the answers given by Gen. Le May about the actions that are will be taken by the Soviets if Americans attacks them. Kennedy thought that the Soviets will give

responds when Americans attack them because of the destroyed missiles and the soldiers who are killed. So, this show how rational Kennedys thinking, he actually does not want the war happened. He is not making a rushing decision, he will think about it deeply before he made the final decision. He will ask the advice from Kenny or his younger brother, Bobby when he are in difficult situations in making the decisions. Furthermore, Kennedy is also a looking forward president. He always thinks about the effects when some decision has been made. Is it the best way or the worst way for a better condition and for the safety of their country? And thats why he have to be a brilliant president because his orders will be followed by his men, once he had made a wrong decisions it will make the country are in chaos and the Americans will get a strike. A leaders intellectual abilities will be related to group performance to the degree that the task requires the use of intellectual ability. Cognitive resource theory assumes that intelligent leaders devise better plans for doing the work than less intelligent leaders, especially when the plan is complex. As the conclusion, President John F. Kennedy have many good attributes and behavior for effective crisis management. Kennedy introduced a new decision making structure in the White House as a stark contrast to his predecessor President Eisenhower. He was ready and willing to make the increased number of quick decisions required in such environment and did a monumental job of selecting his cabinet and other appointments