Current Events in Public Health LeadershipLeadership Perspective Assignment

Current Events in Public Health LeadershipLeadership Perspective - Assignment Example Sebelius acknowledged that the eight-week period of the health care insurance marketplace roll-out was the lowest point in her work as secretary of Health and Human Services. This is not surprising because the failure has severe political impact on both the Obama administration and the policy itself. Such failure already eclipsed the positive outcomes of the policy, which already enrolled up to 7.1 million Americans (NBC 2013). More importantly, however, it reflected the brand of Sebelius leadership particularly in managing a complex project that could indicate an inadequacy to take the lead in the area of public health. The insurance marketplace roll out required health care enrolment online. A website, HealthCare.gov, was created in order to serve as the primary destination for Americans to buy insurance. Upon its launch, however, it encountered severe connectivity issues, server downtimes and serious inability on the part of users to use the website productively, frustrating many Americans in the process. One could say that Sebelius is not the developer of the website and did not create its code. However, the event demonstrated how she was able to handle one of the most critical programs not just of the health department but also of the incumbent administration. The outcome reflected her performance as a leader of health department. Her leadership style appears to be largely political in nature and this is not surprising because she was a political appointee and was the Kansas governor previously. This goes against the necessity to appoint leaders of public health that have the capacity to understand and, therefore, deal with the complexities and scale of problems and issues in public health. Koh and Jacobson (2009) stressed that public health problems entail special challenges that require long-term solutions and the cooperation of numerous stakeholders (p. 199). Sebelius failed in this respect.