Mayor Bloomberg as an Effective Leader

Mayor Bloomberg is the 108th Mayor of the City of New York (Biography, 2012). This past summer I served as a legislative intern for Mayor Bloomberg’s Albany Office of State Legislative Affairs where I observed the process by which the City of New York conveys it’s positions on bills and legislations to the New York State Senate and Assembly. Peter Northouse describes leadership as “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse, 5). When working for Mayor Bloomberg I witnessed this process first hand. According to Northouse, Mayor Bloomberg falls into the category of assigned leadership, that is, “leadership based on occupying a position in an organization” (Northouse, 8). Although this is true, I also believe his role as a leader emerged after a period of time through communication and support from others, in which case he would be categorized as an emergent leader (Northouse, 8). This is because he was elected into office in November 2011; only two months after New York City suffered from the September 11th terrorist attacks. This shows that the voters of New York City trusted Mayor Bloomberg at a critical time when the city was in a bad place. In order to be a good leader, you must first have the trust of the population so that you can influence a group of individuals and promote change; Mayor Bloomberg proved to be a trustworthy leader when he took on his position in the city’s time of need. Mayor Bloomberg was born on February 14th, 1942 in Boston. He was raised in a middle class household and later attended Johns Hopkins University, where he paid tuition by taking loans and working as a parking lot attendant (Biography, 2012). After college he received an MBA from Harvard Business School and was hired by a Wall Street Firm at an entry-level position (Biography, 2012). He preformed very well at this job and eventually worked up to being the head of the firms information systems (Biography, 2012). He was later let go from the firm in 1981 after an acquisition (Biography, 2012). He then launched his own start-up firm called Bloomberg LP which has now grown into a global media company with over 310,000 subscribers to its financial news and information service (Biography, 2012). With the growth of his company, Mayor Bloomberg decided to invest himself in philanthropy (Biography, 2012). He devoted his time and resources to numerous causes and has sat on boards of charitable, cultural and education institutions (Biography, 2012). As chairman of the board at The Johns Hopkins University he helped to build the