President Kennedy's Moon Speech Summary

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President Kennedy’s moon speech at Rice University came at a time of high uncertainty regarding technology and the threat of war. Kennedy’s emotive speech aimed to lift and inspire those who feared the worst and to encourage the population to grow and achieve their greatest potential. The ‘moon speech’ will be analysed by uncovering key components of the speech that created a lasting impression on the authors of this report. It is important to firstly explore and identify the traits and attributes of leadership exhibited by President Kennedy in this speech. Additionally, a discussion amongst group members will be necessary to ascertain how and why this speech was inspiring, and whether this speech could be considered as the greatest speech …show more content…

Papathanasiou et al. (2014, p. 407) outline authentic leadership as the ability to influence the actions and behaviour of individuals to work together to achieve their goals. Additionally, Goffee and Jones (2005, p. 87) describe authentic leadership as a real thing, an attribute that uniquely defines great leaders. Furthermore, they highlight that authentic leaders are highly attuned to their environment and that whilst they retain their distinctiveness they understand how to strongly influence and win acceptance in strong cultures and how to utilise those cultures as a basis for radical change. President Kennedy also displayed attributes of an effective transformational leader in a time of crisis and sought to inspire and encourage the population to develop and achieve their greatest potential. Bass & Riggio (2005, pp. 4-8) explains that transformational leaders inspire their followers to exceed their own expectations and perceived capabilities and is comprised of the four components of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration. DuBrin (2016, p.163) suggest that leaders in a time of crisis need to