Leadership Excess – It's all about me

How does the man at the top of the corporate ladder stay in touch with the man at the bottom? It’s a good question. But actually I have a better one: “How does the man at the top of the corporate ladder ‘give the impression’ that he is in touch with the man at the bottom?”

I raise this as a more pertinent question as the higher up the ladder you go the reality is the harder it gets to really connect, because you are different, you have achieved more, you do have a better car, a nicer house…..you have in the eyes of anyone who hasn’t achieved as much as you…..done better (regardless of your own humility).

But once on the board or at an executive level, you are also lumped into the barrel with the executives that live in a world of excess. Abercrombie & Fitch for example have paid their CEO Mike Jeffries an extra $4 million to….now wait for it…….to reduce his travel of the company jet for personal use. It turns out that Jefferies in 2008 ran up a $1.1 billion bill for the use of the jet, to be honest I earn a reasonable salary and that’s one heck of a disconnect from the ordinary man on the street.

As an executive coach I often come across the senior manager who is talking about his new car, the holiday in Bermuda or the holiday home to someone who frankly is struggling to pay a mortgage. The executive will say they are ‘just being authentic’, which I applaud, my caveat is that there may be something about the a certain ‘sensitivity’ that one might want to bring into play.

So as I said this isn’t just about staying connected, it’s giving the impression that you are.

• Be sensitive to the reality of others
• Remember your every day is another’s ‘never going to happen day’

Leadership Perfection – We're all human after all

“Why in the face of all that, did you not act to contain abusive
deceptive subprime lending? Why did you allow it to become
such an infection in the market place”
- Phil Angelides
(Chairman on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission)

This was the accusatory tone that Alan Greenspan the former chairman of the Federal Reserve met when giving sworn testimony recently to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Rather fantastically there was a time when Alan Greenspan was considered the nearest thing to a deity, one could even say that there was a time when any form of statements against someone of Greenspan importance would have been an act of treason…..but not anymore, in deed those days are long gone.

In fact Greenspan stated: “In the business I was in, I was right 70% of the time, but I was wrong 30% of the time” , what I like about this is the reminder to all of those involved in Leadership that the ‘mighty have indeed fallen’ and this is a different time; in fact far brighter and senior people than you have fallen in the eyes of the observers of this factors. There are now huge portions of the public who don’t really believe in the leadership of the world any more, you only have to look at voter apathy to understand that people ‘don’t believe’; and that runs down all the way to the man on the street not holding senior management in the god like positions they may have done previously.

Greenspan was able to ‘demonstrate some humanity’, but I’m unaware of that ‘humanity’ existing pre-testification!  It often feels that the seeking of forgiveness only comes after things have gone wrong. There’s something there for us to think about, the ‘seeking of forgiveness as you recognise something has gone wrong’ not just when you might be caught.

As leaders there is something incredibly authentic, human and believable about someone who says, “sorry”, when they technically don’t have to. As an executive coach I often hear senior leaders verbalising that they have made a mistake and want to navigate their way through it and “what should I do?”. It’s a simple position that I take:

“Tell the people that need telling the truth”