An Evaluation of Donald Trump's Leadership using Five Practices

This essay provides a contextual background of Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, and analyzes his leadership qualities through the framework of the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership: Modeling the Way, Inspiring a Shared Vision, Challenging the Process, Enabling Others to Act, and Encouraging the Heart. The essay evaluates Trump's credibility, identifies areas for improvement, such as immigration law enforcement, tax reforms, and infrastructure development, and further discusses whether Trump would be more effective in another activity, arguing that his business acumen and deal-making skills might make him more successful as a businessman. The analysis draws upon various sources to support its claims, providing a comprehensive overview of Trump's leadership style and its effectiveness.

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Donald Trump
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Table of Contents
Contextual Background of Donald Trump......................................................................................2
Reasons for Admiration with respect to Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.........................2
Evaluation of Credibility of Donald Trump and Improvement Areas.............................................3
Would Trump be Effective in another Activity...............................................................................4
References:......................................................................................................................................6

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Contextual Background of Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, the 45th President of United States, defines the success story of
United States (Hall, Goldstein & Ingram, 2016). He tried to set a standard for entrepreneurial and
business excellence specifically in sports, real estate and entertainment. Donald J. Trump has
also been a successful man in public service and politics. He won the presidency during the very
first run for the political office. Mr. Trump did his graduation from Wharton School of Finance
under the University of Pennsylvania. He then entered into the world of real estate development
following his father’s footsteps and made a mark in the city of New York. Henceforth,
prestigious addresses in Manhattan became synonymous with Trump. Donald J. Trump has also
been an accomplished writer with over fourteen bestsellers to his credit. He announced
candidacy for Presidency on 16 June 2015. He defeated close to seventeen contenders before
accepting the candidacy of Presidency took place in July 2016. Mr. Trump not only became the
wealthiest but also the oldest man in assuming the presidency. He was the first President without
an experience in the government service or the military.
Reasons for Admiration with respect to Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership
The five practices of Exemplary Leadership include:
1. Modeling the Way: Exemplary leaders know that they must be clear on the guiding
principle for modeling the behavior they seem to expect from the others (Posner, 2013). Donald
J. Trump modeled his way through confidence in spite of facing allegations like having mafia
ties to dishonest business dealings and racial discrimination.

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2. Inspiring Shared Vision: Exemplary leader appreciates the past and have clear image
of the results for the future projects (Hasan, 2013). Every organization has a vision that creates a
force for future. In this regard, Donald J. Trump also had a clear vision that he accomplished by
setting higher expectations not only from himself but also from others around him.
3. Challenging the Process: Exemplary leaders are pioneers who are well aware of the
fact that change and innovations not only involve experimenting but also taking risks (Amer,
2016). Trump displayed this practice of leadership by being great negotiator known for
understanding complicated deals coupled with knowledge related to wider variety of business
and industries. This has also led him to take calculated risk.
4. Enabling Undertaking Action: The Exemplary leadership makes the people feel
capable, strong and committed. These leaders not only believe in hoarding power but by
distributing it away (Posner, 2015). In this regard, one can say that Donald Trump had the
interest and the personality and expressed passion in motivating the others around him.
5. Encouraging the Heart: The leader’s job lies in showing appreciation towards the
contribution of the people and in the creation of a culture for the celebration of the victories and
values (Kouzes & Posner, 2013). In this regard, Donald J Trump seems competitive, has a
winner’s heart and be in charge about the results and getting the things done with a passionate
heart.
Evaluation of Credibility of Donald Trump and Improvement Areas
President Donald J Trump led to one of the largest crowd in the history of the United
States. The credibility of the president came under scrutiny when he fired, James Corney, since

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deputy attorney general came to the conclusion that he might have mishandled the email
investigation of Hillary Clinton (Fuchs, 2017). The White House did not give accurate accounts
of the happenings until reports, writing and the photographs provided newer version of facts. On
being confronted with necessary evidence, the President along with spokesperson did not always
acknowledge the need for correcting falsehood.
The areas where Trump can improve include:
1. Enforcing the immigration laws of the United States along with implementation of a
points-based system. This implies that enforcing the immigration laws and border security would
restore people’s faith in the government
2. Enacting reforms in smart tax which includes reduction of income tax, increasing the
rate of the short term capital gain and refundable credit for the child tax against the payroll taxes.
3. Introduction of a pro-family policy that includes deductibility of expenses related to
childcare the income taxes
4. Focusing on the infrastructure with an infrastructure plan that solely focuses on nuclear
power, higher speed of the internet and the ambitious projects
5. Helping the Inner Cities. This implies unveiling the agenda
for communities populated by forgotten Americans
Would Trump be Effective in another Activity

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Donald J Trump would be more successful as businessmen (Ahmadian, Azarshahi &
Paulhus, 2017). This is because of the following reasons:
1. Donald J Trump had the necessary art form that allowed him to kick started a business
man by making bigger deals
2. He possessed the ability of making deals and undertook calculated risks.
3. He aimed higher had possessed the ability of achieving it.
4. He posed the quality of total focuses and was maniacal and obsessive in channelizing
their work.
5. He possessed the capability of playing loose without scheduling too many meetings

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References:
Ahmadian, S., Azarshahi, S., & Paulhus, D. L. (2017). Explaining Donald Trump via
communication style: Grandiosity, informality, and dynamism. Personality and Individual
Differences, 107, 49-53.
Amer, H. (2016). Learning Leadership: The Five Fundamentals of Becoming an Exemplary
Leader. Human Resource Development Quarterly.
Fuchs, C. (2017). Donald Trump: A critical theory-perspective on authoritarian
capitalism. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a
Global Sustainable Information Society, 15(1), 1-72.
Hall, K., Goldstein, D. M., & Ingram, M. B. (2016). The hands of Donald Trump: Entertainment,
gesture, spectacle. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 6(2), 71-100.
Hasan, H. A. (2013). Promoting organizational citizenship behavior among employees-the role
of leadership practices. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(6), 47.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2013). The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership: How
Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Things Happen.
Posner, B. Z. (2013). It's how leaders behave that matters, not where they are from. Leadership
& organization development journal, 34(6), 573-587..
Posner, B. Z. (2015). An investigation into the leadership practices of volunteer
leaders. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(7), 885-898.