Margaret Thatcher: Prime Minister of England 1980's - Essay Example

Business 17 October Margaret Thatcher - Prime Minister - England 1980’s Brief Overview Thatcher’s Biography Margaret Thatcher was born in Lincolnshire, located in the northern part of London in a respectable, and moderately well up family. Like any other kid, she had her childhood interests and participated in sports, piano classes, debates, and enjoyed public speaking and reading politics books. She lived from October 1925 to April 2013. Born as Margaret Hilda Roberts, she attended a local grammar school, then Grantham girls High school, and later got accepted at Oxford University to study chemistry and science (“Margaret,” biography.com). Her father was a great influence in her life. Her father, who owned a grocery shop, was also a respectable member of the town council and later became a mayor. Margaret got married in the early 1950s and got two kids; Mark and Carol. Political interest and career can be traced in her early life before marriage, when she became the president of Oxford University Conservative Association. After receiving her degree in chemistry, she became a research chemist, and later attempted to run for Dartford’s parliamentary seat prior her marriage. Though she lost in both trials under a Conservative ticket in areas dominated by Labour party, she endeavoured to prepare herself by practicing law (tax law) before being elected as a representative of Finchley in 1959 (“Margaret,” biography.com) under conservative party. She served in various positions afterwards; as a junior minister for pensions and national insurance under Harold’s government, a member of Edward Heath’s shadow cabinet during Labour party regime, secretary for education when Heath became PM, a conservative party leader after Heath in 1975, and finally, the first female elected PM in Britain in 1979, to serve until her resignation towards the end of 1990 (Owen, theguardian.com). She later quitted the House of Commons and was appointed a peeress in the House of Lords, but due to health effects, she retired from public speaking early during the 21st century. She earned the title ‘Iron lady’, following her rise into power and political career. Leadership Style The leadership style of Margaret Thatcher was influenced by her principles, beliefs, background, and other qualities she possessed. Her leadership can be described as a combination of dominant-authoritarian and charismatic styles (Ribberink genderforum.org). In her leadership efforts to reform Britain, most of the policies she put forth faced opposition even from some of her party members. Though she demonstrated certain good qualities of leadership like confidence and focus to accomplish an objective, her decisions could be difficult to changes, lacking room for flexibilities, or accommodating other thoughts to shape the policies she used for the future of Britain’s economy. During the conflicts over the Malvinas Island, the PM ignored the immediate advice to use diplomacy as a way to resolve the issue, and instead remained adamant to the use of a naval task force, rejecting pleas and negotiation of a resolution (Sides, themonkeycage.org). Her lack of inflexibility in decision or policy making increased her opposition, as it felt she had overstepped the civil service and party structures into personal oriented influence. However, despite her authoritative leadership style, she would manage to get things done, but her iron will which her party failed to tolerate led to her demise as a PM. Right from her youth and for the rest of her political career, Margaret Thatcher reflected the qualities of a charismatic leader. The charismatic qualities she had persuaded the electorate to vote for her, both as a constituency representative and a party leader later in power. Public speaking equipped her better into this leadership style. Beyond that, she expressed self confidence, had a strong will to perform, and articulated her strong vision for Britain and its economy. It is her charismatic leadership that led to her strong impact on her followers and a strong vision for Britain that made it capable for the nation to move far as an independent country, rather than as a member of the European Union. Due to her stand as a charismatic leader, she was detested and yet praised from to time, which are the consequences of this style of leadership. Strengths in Leadership There is no doubt that Margaret Thatcher had sufficient qualities that boosted her career and leadership. The major qualities included resilience, in the sense that she was tough and consistent in her decisions. She led Britain in a very challenging period, which was during the 80’s recession and had to make and enforce disciplined policies to save and reform the nation’s economy. As a leader, she knew what she wanted; she therefore achieved and passionately held on to the vision she believed in. One of the incidents where she displayed what she believed in was during her term as secretary of education, where she challenged convectional higher education funding. Her first decision to challenge the funding failed to reflect her party’s opinion; however, she remained convinced of the Labour project. Later, when she became the PM, she maintained the Labour party’s policy and went ahead to reduce 18 percent of UK’s universities budgets, accompanied by abolishment of 3000 academic posts (Weinbren telegraph.co.uk ). As she directed her country in great confidence of her decisions, she looked for ways to address the structural problems in the economy (distortion of labour market and fiscal deficit), taking Britain through a reform transition. She courageously increased taxes, and introduced non -subsidizing of obsolete industries whose markets were failing, in an effort to rebuild the British economy. Weaknesses in Leadership A leadership style can be very tricky. While Margaret Thatcher managed to drive the economy towards reform in her exceptional qualities, in her strength lay her weakness in leadership. Times and the political environment were changing and her leadership could not adjust with the changes. She simply overplayed her leadership qualities that some of her in House party supporters joined to oppose her. Even with admirable qualities, she championed them in isolation to enforce her policies, which affected factors of production in the name of establishing a healthy economy and society. In several situations, due to her tough state of uncompromised decisions, her unyielding approach to most of the situations limited room for negotiated agreement. In the last term of her tenure as a PM, her deputy PM, sir Geoffrey proved her unwillingness to compromise; Thatcher had overplayed her inflexibility, she forcefully rejected European Economic Community’s (EEC) integration and its use of a single currency, a stand that contradicted with her deputy and divided the conservative party members (FindingDulcinea Staff, findingdulcinea.com). Most of her supporters felt she had lost touch with reality and failed to move in same direction with the rest of the community. The party members could not ignore the pressure her adamant stand cost the party. Some opposed, while others supported her decision, causing disharmony and a division in party opinion. The party members’ counselled her to resign, thus ending her tenure as a prime minister and a facilitating union in the conservative party. Overcoming the Weaknesses The modern way for politicians to regain their influence is by engaging in negotiations or coalitions, in order to gather enough support. However, for Margaret Thatcher, her strong conviction and belief was the answer. Being a female leader, she had to decide on and implement her actions as she intended. Most would argue she had attempted to intimidate her opposers in her authoritarian leadership, so as to expend her policies. Integration with the EEC and having Britain dependent on a union’s single currency was not part of her vision as the leader of the government. If anyone expected her to bend her direction to remain in leadership, well, she communicated her message when she unregretfully resigned from her office. The end of her leadership as a PM did not stop her political career and all along, she expressed her long standing political ideology later in public speeches and lectures. For her, the weakness as put across by the society was not a failure, but a conviction that she upheld. Works Cited FindingDulcinea Staff. “On This Day: Margaret Thatcher Steps Down as Britain Prime Minister.” findingdulcinea.com. 28 November 2011. Web. 17 October 2013. “Margaret Thatcher Biography.” Biography.com. 2013. Web. 17 October 2013. Owen, Paul. “The Life of Margaret Thatcher- Timeline.” Theguardian.com. 8 April 2013. Web. 17 October 2013. Ribberink, A. “Gender Politics with Margaret Thatcher: Vulnerability and Toughness.” Genderforum.org. 2010. Web. 17 October 2013. Sides, John. “Margaret Thatcher Her personality and Politics.” Themonkeycage.org. 8 April 2013. Web. 17 October 2013. Weinbren, Daniel. “Oxford may have Snubbed Margaret Thatcher but Higher education owes her a Debt.” Telegraph.co.uk. 9 April 2013. Web. 17 October 2013. Read More