Leadership and Management

Leadership and Management

The conditions under which Franklin Roosevelt donned the presidency of the United States could sparingly have been more daunting. The country was in year four of a disastrous economic crisis known as the great depression. Twenty five percent of the workforce in America was out of work, or barely working at all, more than thirty eight states had financial institutions that had closed or were closing, and farmers across the country who were losing their farms began to resist the taking of their farms and property by resorting to violence (The White House, 2013). Even the actual continuation of a democracy surrounding the nation’s political system was in peril.

Leader

Franklin Roosevelt was innovative, was able to develop plans to be followed, and had a long term view to bring the nation back to a level of prosperity. Roosevelt’s ideas involved taking the nation off of the gold standard and his innovative ideas spawned what became known as social security for the citizens of the country and an enormous work program that put American’s back to work known as the Work Progress Administration, part of Roosevelt’s New Deal plan. Roosevelt was not willing to accept the status quo at the time.

Manager

As a manager Roosevelt was able to control the fellow democrats that were in political office at the time. Roosevelt even had control of some republicans that were willing to side with him during his first presidency. Roosevelt had political leaders from both sides working on his team to solve the crisis the nation was in. His ability to control both the democrats and the republicans made Roosevelt a great manager of his time. Another example of Roosevelt’s attempt at being a manager was when he made the decision to add more justices to the Supreme Court that were in favor of his New Deal program. Although he was not successful in his endeavor, it was a clear example of Roosevelt’s intent to control the courts (Leuchtenburg, May).

Roles and Functions

Roosevelt displayed many roles and functions as the nation’s president. Two of the most popular roles could have been his ability to direct and his capability to set goals. The similarity of his ability to direct and set goals went hand in hand. His direction to his support staff was quite clear when it came to achieving the goals he had in mind. Roosevelt knew that he needed to direct the nation out of the depression, and he had numerous goals that he had set to make that happen. Roosevelt needed the support of his entire party and even the support of some republicans. He was able to direct the political system to favor his ideas therefore increasing the chances that his goals for the nation would be