Leadership Analysis of Russian President Vladimir Putin

Leadership Analysis on example of

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Introduction

Before I begin Leadership Analysis I would like to define what Leadership means to me. Leadership is the process of influencing others towards the attainment of certain pre-defined goals. Leadership style refers to the methodology adopted by the leader to carry out the roles and responsibilities of the leadership process1.

After studying the biography of many of historical and contemporary leaders it can be concluded that up to some extent leadership qualities are inherent but good leaders are created or made, they are not born. Because these inherent qualities need to be polished and molded through experiences and are within an individual giving him some authority. If you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through a never ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience.

Of all the world's many leaders, I can honestly say that the one I've learn the most from is Russian President Vladimir Putin. In my opinion he is strong, grate leader. Not that many civilian people new about his activities and presents before. But short after he took Prime Minister Chair and then became a President of Russian Federation, he gained authority and support from most Russian nation with extremely high speed. I would like to summarize some of the key events from his life experience so we could see which techniques and strategies he used during his race, so we could see development of his leadership capabilities.

Background

Putin's crafted image of civility and Europeanism is accented by his strong attachment to St. Petersburg, the place he was born and spent most of his career. The city was meant to be a window on Europe and a door for it; and Putin is said, now, to represent it.

Growing up in Leningrad, Putin lived with his parents in a communal apartment with two other families. Though religion was not permitted in the Soviet Union, his mother secretly had him baptized as an Orthodox Christian.

As a boy, Putin dreamed of joining the secret police (KGB). When he was seventeen he went to KGB headquarters and asked a startled officer what he should do to "join up." He was told to attend the university and major in law. Putin took his advice and attended Leningrad State University2. After earning a law degree in 1975 Putin landed a job with the KGB, the only one in his class of 100 to be chosen.

Putin's period in the K.G.B. in St. Petersburg and in East Germany has been trawled over, but little has emerged beyond the enormous paradox that this self-confident, articulate and delicate performer was regarded - when he was noticed at all - as gray, silent, nondescript. He was posted to Dresden in 1985, where his cover was to run the Soviet-German House of Friendship in Leipzig. In 1990, when East Germany did indeed collapse, Putin returned to Leningrad and took a job in the international affairs department at his alma mater, screening foreign students. However, that was a cover for his continuing intelligence work. Soon after, one of his former university professors, Anatoly Sobchak, asked him to join his administration. Sobchak at that time was former St. Petersburg mayor who gave him his start in politics. If the Soviet Union could produce, in its dying days, an upper-class radical, Sobchak was it. Many analysts emphasize Putin's intelligence training and his Soviet-era background. Besides, Putin is as much a product of the Russian environment and heritage as Yeltsin (first Russian President) was. In fact, Putin's Russianness, in the broadest sense, is the key to his character; in certain respects his rule is re-enacting distinctive Russian political traditions.

In 1996, when Sobchak lost his mayoral campaign, Putin was offered a job with the victor, but declined out of loyalty. The next year, he was asked to join President Boris Yeltin's "inner circle" as deputy chief administrator of the Kremlin. He left the Kremlin in 1998 to become head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the domestic intelligence arm and successor to the KGB, which had been dismantled. In March of 1999, he was named secretary of the Security Council, a body that advises the president on matters pertaining to foreign policy, national security, and military and law enforcement. In August of 1999, after Yeltsin had gone through five prime ministers in 17 months, he appointed Putin, who was originally dismissed by many observers as not a viable heir apparent to the ill president. For one thing, he had little political experience; for another, his appearance and personality seemed bland. However, Putin increased his appeal among citizens for his role in vehemently pursuing the war in Chechnya. On New Year's Eve in 1999, Yeltsin unexpectedly stepped down as president, naming Putin as acting president. He was officially elected to the office in 2000 and then re-elected in a landslide vote in March of 2004.

Analysis

Putin is a difficult character to study. An ex-KGB colonel, he is at times deliberately indistinct. And his secretive and tight-knit court tends to operate according to the Old Russian village principle of "Do not carry rubbish out of the hut." But anyway during my search I found some useful information that would help me to analyze Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin as a leader. Firs of all I want to point out that his leadership capability began to appear in his childhood. Vladimir Putin mentions being beaten by stronger children in his rough-and-tumble neighborhood in Leningrad. ``I learned that I must be able to respond immediately to any offense,'' Putin said, recalling a fight he picked and lost before entering first grade. ``I understood that in order to win I have to go to the end in any fight, as if in the last, decisive combat.''2 It's not clear whether he was generally the instigator of the combat or responding to taunts and insults he felt should not go unchallenged. In any case, he resolved to fortify himself. After getting his nose broken, he took up sambo, a Soviet combination of judo and wrestling, and finally settled on judo4. He devoted himself to rigorous workouts and became a black belt and a city-wide champion. Putin's judo training taught him to control his emotions, but when he is angry his outbursts can be not only crude but breathtakingly acerbic. Putin's instinct to make himself whole is mirrored in his imperative to keep Russia from breaking up--but any Russian leader