Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady and Her Leadership Style

This PowerPoint presentation provides an overview of the life, political career, and leadership style of Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It covers her childhood, education, and political career, including her three terms as Prime Minister. The presentation also discusses her leadership theory, who influenced her, and her effectiveness as a leader. References are included for further reading.

Power Point Presentation

Table of Contents
 Introduction
 Margaret Thatcher- childhood and education
 Political career
 First term
 Second term
 Third term
 Leadership
 Who influenced her
 Effectiveness of Margaret Thatcher
 Conclusion
 References

Introduction
Baroness Margaret Thatcher was the first female Prime
Minister of United Kingdom. She was born on October
13, 1925, at Grantham, Lincolnshire. She was a
member and leader of Conservative party and served
as Prime Minister in 1979-1990. Journalist gave her a
nickname as “Iron lady” because of her leadership
style and uncompromising politics. She died on 8th
April 2013 after suffering a stroke.

Margaret Thatcher's childhood and education:
She was born in small town of England called Lincolnshire and belonged to a
middle-class family. Her father Alfred was a grocery store owner and one time mayor
of Grantham. Earlier she pursued her basic education from the local state school, later
she studied her higher education from Oxford University in chemistry.

Political Career
She got her 1st job as a research chemist and was initially trying to become the MP
(Member of Parliament) and lost twice in 1950 and 1951 but after years of efforts, she
became MP from Finchley, London in October 1959. Later she worked hard and
entered cabinet as education secretory in 1970.

First term (1979-1983)
In 1979, her party won General Election and she became 1st female Prime Minister.
As PM, her first two years were very difficult as unemployment was very high that
time but economy was improving and she was getting more reputation after leading
the country to war against the Argentina.

Second term (1983-1987)
In 1983 Conservatives won election with majority with help of divided opposition.
She started many campaigns of deregulation, privatisation, reforms of trade unions
and introduced market mechanism into education and health. She bonded strong with
US and allowed them to use their air bases to attack Libya. Once IRA tried to
assassin her and cabinet members during the conservative party annual conference.

Third Term (1987-1990)
In 1987 she was again elected and her government improved education system and
health services, also she lowered income tax rates which pushed an unpopular
“community charge” that lead to major street protest. In 1990 she was challenged
by former defence minister for leadership of party which she won but she officially
stepped down after her cabinet members visited her on November 28.

Leadership Theory
During all her life she proves to be a transactional
leader. In this type of leadership theory main focus is
always on achieving goal perfectly, keeping team
together and motivated, giving credits and rewards for
achievements and blunders are not forgiven. So, by her
leadership skills, she succeeds to overcome many
problems like inflation, unemployment, economic
issues etc. She was strict on mistakes but a great leader
for group performance of her cabinet.

Who influenced Her?
Margaret Thatcher's was mainly influenced from her father who was very active in the local
religions and politics. Her family was very liberal and she was an independent lady. She was
regularly involved in the discussions on current affairs and met many politicians. She was a
known personality for the party members.

Effectiveness of Margaret Thatcher
Effectiveness of Margaret Thatcher was that she have achieved many of the objectives which
has been set up for her. However, these aims were necessarily not satisfying to all who were
involved in this. She always gave the new hope to the women when talking about being
successful. At the time of Thatcher’s rise to the power, women were only seen as the
housewives but she proved it wrong by way of holding the important job in the England.

Conclusion
From above PPT it can be concluded that Baroness Margaret Thatcher was a born leader,
first lady Prime Minister of United Kingdom and longest serving Prime Minister for over
150 years and was named as Iron Lady by a Soviet Union journalist. She was famous for
her transactional leadership style.

References
 Williams, B.E., 2021. A tale of two women: A comparative gendered media analysis of UK
Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. Parliamentary Affairs, 74(2), pp.398-
420.
 Goodlad, G., 2018. A tale of two Tories: Comparing Theresa May and Margaret
Thatcher. Political Insight, 9(3), pp.12-14.