Posts Tagged ‘political leadership’
Leadership Lessons from 2011 December 30 2011 one response
Wow, what a year this has been for good, bad, maddening and inspiring examples of leadership. In his column today, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius makes the case that historians will look back on 2011 as a “hinge” – a year in which momentous events set the stage for major changes in the future. The challenge in writing an end of year recap on the leadership lessons to be learned for a year like this is deciding what not to write about.
On the list of things I’ve written about this year but won’t be writing about today are the reaction to the shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords and other victims in January, the killing of Bin Laden in May, the scandals at Ohio State and Penn State, the end of Anthony Weiner’s career in Congress, the News of the World phone hacking scandal and the death of Steve Jobs. When stories like those don’t make the final list, you know it’s been a big news year.
What’s on my mind most on this penultimate day of 2011 is what’s behind Time magazine naming the Protestor its person of the year. As the year unfolded, the Arab Spring spread from Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen to Libya to Bahrain to Syria. In the late Summer and early Fall, the Occupy Wall Street movement spread from Zucotti Park to cities around the U.S. and the world. As the year drew to a close, more than 50,000 Muscovites rallied in the streets to protest Vladimir Putin’s intent to name himself president of Russia for another decade or so.
2011 has been a rough year for autocrats and plutocrats. It’s been the year when followers have banded together and organized themselves to shout out, “Enough!” One of the images from this year that sticks with me most is an Egyptian in Tahrir Square holding up a sign that simply said, “I Am a Man.” This was the year when hundreds of thousands organized themselves to be heard and acknowledged as human beings. The technology of the smart phone, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have enabled these movements to grow and spread at breathtaking speed.
As the customer relations debacle at Netflix earlier this year showed, this desire and ability of people to be heard as never before has implications for leaders across the board. Perhaps the biggest of these is that if you’re in a leadership role you have to listen and pay attention. The demonstrated lack of that is likely why most Americans are so disgusted with Congress. Taking the country to the brink time and again as illustrated in the debt ceiling debacle shows a leadership class that doesn’t get it.
If 2011 has anything to teach leaders, it’s that if you don’t pay attention to what matters most, the people will make sure that you do and either vote with their feet or replace you if you don’t. There’s an old quote that’s been attributed to a number of people including Gandhi that seems to apply as never before. “There go my people. I must follow them for I am their leader.”
It will be fascinating to see where the people lead their leaders in 2012 and how the leaders respond.
What are your predictions?
How to Do Less with Less November 7 2011 one response
As I’ve spoken with groups of leaders over the last year, I’ve often begun the conversation by asking how many of them would say that the results that are expected of them today are significantly different than those that were expected a year ago. Usually, every hand in the room goes up. Then I’ll ask the question about future expectations. How many of you think that the results that will be expected of you a year from now will be a whole lot different than the results that are expected today? Again, just about every hand goes up.
That’s the point where we start talking about what’s going to have to change for them to get different results. I’ve heard a lot this year about the expectation to do more with less. A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a group of newly promoted government executives including flag officers from one of the branches of the military. No one mentioned the line about doing more with less so I asked them if they felt that was what they’re up against. There were a few moments of silence until one of the flag officers said, “Actually, for a lot of us, it’s going to be doing less with less.”
Most everyone in the room agreed. To be honest, I had not really thought about it that way until that moment but it made perfect sense. To take one example, as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta notes in an interview with the New York Times this morning, his department will be implementing a $450 billion budget cut over the next ten years. He and his team will have to consider base closings, reallocation of resources, benefit programs and a lot of other options to make the cuts while still fulfilling the DOD mission around the world. That’s not easy.
Doing more with less certainly has its challenges (and will likely be the topic for future blog posts). Doing less with less might be even more challenging because it not only deals with the resource constraints, it also deals with the emotional and intellectual exercises of scaling back expectations.
I’m not suggesting that there are a few easy steps to doing less with less, but here are some thoughts that might help frame the challenge. I’d love to hear what you think and what you’d add.
How to Quit Kicking the Can Down the Road September 26 2011 no responses
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria is one of the smartest people I don’t know. His GPS (Global Public Square) show on Sunday afternoon is an oasis of civil and intelligent discussion on world events in a desert of babble and blather.
He opened this week’s show with a commentary on the burgeoning economic crisis in the Eurozone. You can read the full transcript of his remarks on his blog, but here’s the conclusion that really caught my attention and stimulated my thinking:
“Everywhere leaders all seem to assume that if they just keep things steady, something will miraculously happen to solve the problems and jumpstart growth. It won’t. The problems are actually getting worse and by sticking their heads in the sand, leaders are only deepening the inevitable crisis.”
Of course, that dynamic is not limited to the Eurozone. I’ve noticed that the phrase of the moment is “kicking the can down the road.” When you want to ignore a problem, defer it to someone else’s watch or wait for it to magically get better, you kick the can down the road.
It’s a strategy that almost never works. Take a common, everyday example. How many times have you seen a manager with a non-performing or disruptive employee not act to correct the situation in the hope that things would get better on their own? I’ve seen it lots of times and it never gets better.
So, why, as human beings who sometimes happen to be leaders, do we kick the can down the road? More importantly, what can we do to deal with problems instead of avoiding them? Here are some ideas.
A 5 Step Plan for Speaking Truth to Power September 14 2011 2 responses
Let’s hear it for Doug Elmendorf!
It’s possible that, as was the case with me until yesterday afternoon, you don’t know who Doug Elmendorf is. He runs the Congressional Budget Office and was the star witness at a hearing yesterday of the Congressional Super Committee charged with reducing the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion. I heard parts of Elmendorf’s appearance in a story on NPR and knew immediately that I was blogging about Doug today. When it comes to effectively speaking truth to power, Doug rocks. He’s a role model for any leader who has to sit or stand in front of a group of powerful people and tell them things they may not want to hear.
You owe it to yourself to listen to the NPR story. It’s a little over four minutes long and you may want to stand up and cheer when it’s over. In the meantime, here’s my breakdown of Doug Elmendorf’s five step approach to speaking truth to power:
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
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