Leadership in Error (aka "How not to do a Gordon")

Gordon Brown did the classic mistake of talking privately with the microphone on, which is the political comedy version of the speaker at a wedding doing the same thing as he goes to the loo and bad mouths the parents of the bride.

Rather brilliantly though Gordon Brown didn’t stop there, no! He hurtled on with reckless speed and a gathering momentum:

• He bad mouthed an old lady
• Blamed his aid
• Went to a radio show, didn’t realise he was being filmed and showed his true reactions
• Thinking it would help (it didn’t, it looked staged, because it was) went to the ladies house to apologise
• Didn’t think to do so to his aid, after bad mouthing her too

Frankly as an Executive Coach, even I don’t know where to start, especially as this sits on top of allegations of ‘bullying’ his staff, to which a senior civil servant trying to help said, “Gordon isn’t a bully he just has very high expectations!” (Like Stalin?)

OK! Well enough with the comedy, there is a serious point here which has to do with management of ones personal brand. I could go onto to give some facile tips on what not to do:

• Always check your microphone is off
• Ensure you don’t talk ill of others

But the reality is that though accurate, it’s not good enough, the key here is a person’s personal moral compass and the culture/environment that they build around them.

Moral Compass
Do you believe in only talking of people when they are not in the room, in the same manner you do when they are?

Culture
Do you encourage people to give you honest and open feedback, that you don’t just tolerate, but that you actively encourage, to the point it is aberrant behaviour to not give honest ‘support & challenge’?

When it comes to making mistakes as a leader, the most important thing to remember is that often it is as important to STOP and take a moment to seek counsel, not from those that will tell you how to manage the situation (which is still relevant), but to seek counsel from those who can advise you on who to BE, as the situation unfolds; and frankly the person you are being will dictate the experience and thus your credibility as people judge you for what you are doing (which sometimes you’ll get right and sometimes you won’t).

Gordon Brown tried to ‘control & stage manage’ the situation, he consciously or unconsciously asked himself,”what should I do?”; which is the right question to ask, but he asked it at the wrong  time. His reflex questions, your reflex questions, the reflex questions of any leader should be:

• “Who am I going to be in this situation?”
• “What would a good version of me do next?”

Weary Executives leave the City

The Times carried a story today about James Burridge who left the banking world to become a maths teacher, with the words:”I just thought there has to be more to life than this“.

It’s a valid point and one that any Executive Coach coaching at senior levels finds themselves increasingly coming across and as a coach there is no definitive answer other than the one that sits within the individual and that of course is the point. It’s the answer that sits within all of us.

The role of the executive coach is to enable the thinking of those asking themselves this perennial question, so that they may come to a conclusion that enables them to live within the moment and not lose focus on the reality of their real world situation.

It becomes apparent that for many people the answer is well-known to them, what is not so clear is how to access the courage that may have to be called upon to take the relevant steps.

Fred 'the shred' Goodwin vs. Gordon Brown demonstrating the leadership spectrum

On the one side we have a man who ran a commercial enterprise with a reputation of ‘shredding’ the cost out of a business and on the other we have a man who is in public service.

Fred ‘the shred’ Goodwin’s salary £3million’ish vs. Gordon Brown’s salary £187k

Now the Executive Coaching Guru makes one observation that the one refuses to relinquish any of his £693K per annum pension, whilst the 2nd shut parliament for a day in order to honour a colleague who has suffered the horrible loss of his child.

They are of course different scenario’s, but they do I think indicate the fundamental line of variance that exists in the market place.

For me the next decade will see a swing towards the ability of a leader to not only run the show, but do so with a level of humanity that is present in the behaviour of Gordon Brown, but not Fred Goodwin.

The business you lead in today, whether you recognise it or not is made up of people that are witnessing a huge shift in the drivers that propel our wealth generation. The banks WILL be different, reward will be for ‘sustainability & legacy’, not the quick turn around.

If ever there was a time for the individual to consider their role and responsibility as a leader then this is it, your people are ready for the kind of leadership that sees the value in the person, not just the dollar.

Women leaders less tolerant of same sex than male counterparts

A recent study by Professor Joyce Benenson and her  team from Emmanuel College in Boston ‘found that men were far more tolerant of other males when it came to showing more understanding and empathy towards workmates of the same sex, the research suggests women will quickly form a negative opinion of female peers who make a mistake or under perform.’

I am not sure if this is one of those things that falls under the heading of ‘well it’s scientific so it must be true’ or ‘well they can prove anything they want to can’t they?”, however what a fabulous bit of research to get the discussion flowing; I have to say there is a part of me that wants to voice an opinion on this, but then again I have another part saying ‘keep your trap shut buddy!’

There is one thing I do know and that is that even if this is right, both men and women in this current age are pulled towards making calculated judgements as to the value of association to another person, in order to calibrate their own ‘brand’ in relation to who they associate with. Frankly this is a shame, because the more we grade, evaluate and grid our relationships, as opposed to just allowing them to have their natural place, the more we incrementally find ourselves planning who we do or do not ‘connect with’.

So take a little notice of the research, but not too much and ask yourself, “How often do I calculate a persons value to myself by way of the value of the association, as opposed to merely having this person on a long list of colleagues I engage with (each in their own different and unique way).

Leadership hero Alison Hawkes, puts XL bosses to shame

Now honestly what would you do? Really think about this, you hear you are out of a job through the media, you know you won’t get paid, to be true most of us would (post blaspheming) spend the next day trying to call your boss and get the CV up to date; this isn’t what Alison Hawkws did though. No she got up the next morning, got dressed and went into work in order to help people, which I think deserves a round of applause and I darned well wish I’d been there to give her one! Well done Alison Hawkes the Executive Coaching Guru salutes you.

• Management is at its most and overly simplistic, managing resources
• Leadership is setting direction, acting selflessly, seeing the big picture and doing what others are not willing to do, but above all leadership is the willingness to be a human being to other human beings.

We’ll never know the answer to this, but how many of the XL tour operators board of directors, XL non- executive directors or any of senior management tier turned up at any airport? I’m going to hazard a guess that Alison was one of a very small handful.

Executive coaching very often means touching the hearts and souls of people that have spent a long time building persona’s that they feel represents the kind of leader they want to be or most probably feel should be. The executive coach often has a primary role to enable the most senior of managers to ‘give themselves permission’ to be themselves, the whole person at home and at work. We often look to the business world for examples of where this has worked, but honestly I’m not really interested in the example of a millionaire business leader who has decided that to rescue their soul they will give something back through writing a book. I’m empowered by the humble and honest behaviour of Alison Hawkes, the XL tour operator employee of the century and the fact she demonstrated the core foundation of all leadership behaviour, leadership of oneself. If you are a coach I’d say these are the examples, these are the people you want to find to get to come and talk to your leadership groups.

The Executive Coaching Guru has always said, “if anyone looks to you for direction, then you are like it not, in that moment a leader”, when Alison Hawkes walked into that airport, I wonder how many people looked to her for direction!? That’s leadership by anyones standard.

Authentic Presence: Obama acceptance speech

First of all it’s worth noting I am fundamentally not interested in politics, as I believe that the soul went out of the whole arena when Kennedy and Gandhi were shot. There’s just something that has always struck me as unsavoury about the type of person that wants power and dominion over others.

A friend of mine is a policeman and he has always said about validating gun licenses, “there should be an automatic criteria for denying someone a gun license….we don’t give a gun to anyone that actually wants one. Instead we should give them only to people that have no interest in them”.

I like this type of thinking and have always thought the same thing should apply to politics, the criteria for selection should be only choosing those that don’t want the power, but do want the job! I digress….well actually not really. I have just never seen selflessness in the eyes of only but a hand full of politicians.

This brings me to Barack Obama, I have just been watching the speeches surrounding Obama’s acceptance as the Democratic nominee in Denver and by heck what an impressive set of speeches they were. Bill Clinton was superb bringing the two competing teams of Hilary Clinton and Obama together, at the same time with the brilliance that is Clinton there is a certain ‘loose cannon’ element about him.

Someone decided that just in case Bill Clinton went off message then there would be a five second delay on the broadcast similar to that used to screen callers on talk radio programs. The five-second delay, customarily used to censor callers who might use profanity or other unacceptable speech on a radio show, has never before been used in the broadcast of a speech by a former President of the United States. But convention planners, nervous that Mr. Clinton might depart from his prepared remarks in an unacceptable way, said that they were using the delay “just in case.”

Obama himself ‘I thought’ topped it off brilliantly with a 60 minute speech that I have now actually watched 3 times.

To watch the full videos visit youtube and type/paste in:

• Joe Biden accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination for VP
• Bill Clinton Democratic Convention Speech – Part 1
• Bill Clinton Democratic Convention Speech – Part 2
• Bill Clinton Democratic Convention Speech – Part 3
• Barack Obama (Part 1) – Acceptance Speech – Democratic National Convention 2008
• Barack Obama (Part 2) – Acceptance Speech – Democratic National Convention 2008
• Barack Obama (Part 3) – Acceptance Speech – Democratic National Convention 2008

Obama talks from the heart, he is authentic. Being honest I’m not really in a situation to say whether his politics are sound, whether his budget adds up but you know, “that doesn’t matter”. When you decide to ‘follow’ a leader the majority of the time you never really know the facts as they get to see them and most of the time you’re not as knowledgeable as they are, nor do you have the resources to back you up like they do. So what are you really buying into? Simply, whether or not you actually trust the person, the human being, the fact that if it all goes horribly wrong, even if you don’t really get it, you trust them to make a decision that you can and will believe in.

Watch the video. Do you trust the man even if you can’t be sure about the facts? The Executive Coaching Guru does.

Leadership decisions – Max Mosley 'stay or go'

Max Mosley the somewhat embarrassed President of Motor-sports governing body, has been fighting a public battle over the allegations of a Sunday newspaper that he took part in a ‘sick Nazi orgy’ and apparently had the video evidence to prove it: mock uniforms, whippings, talking in German.

Now the Executive Coaching Guru doesn’t feel it is his right to judge others, in regards to their personal appetites, whatever you get up to in the privy of your own dungeon is your business! But there are a few things that don’t sit comfortably.

As long as no one is getting harmed, then basically do what you want, but at the same time you are the leader of an organisation that operates at a global level and has incredible power in terms of its influence, not only within a global market but to all those that look up to their sporting heroes. So you see, it’s not just as simple a thing as saying “it’s a private matter”, because once you take on the mantel of leadership, especially within a marketing led business, then this comes with it’s own level of responsibilities.

Let’s use the example of parent hood, Max has sons, who I can only believe are embarrassed by the exploits of their father. But doesn’t Max have a responsibility to those boys that goes beyond the ‘not getting caught’ to the ‘not blinking well doing it in the first place’. Why? Simply because he had no right to place his family into a ‘potential’ situation where this might occur, which it did. Because these things always come out.

In the same way the Executive Coaching Guru believes that Mr Max Mosely had a responsibility to not place the sport he represents into a place where if something goes wrong, may create a situation that adversely affects it. But Mr Ecclestone (President and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration) denied that the claims threatened Mr Mosley’s position as president of the motor sport’s governing body, saying, “Has he in anyway damaged F1? No!”; he told the Daily Mail.

Really Mr Ecclestone, you can see nothing that connects the behaviour of this individual to the sport, I bet you’d be singing a different tune if you didn’t like the guy. If you don’t already know Mr Mosley is the fourth son of British World War II fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, a friend of Adolf Hitler, now if ever there was a warning sign that you might not want to get caught up in anything that even has the word German in it as a descriptor, I reckon that’s it.

So what is the message here, well it’s a simple one. The moment you step into a leadership role, you are bestowed with a weight of office that goes beyond the mere operational tasks that come with the role, I can’t believe for one moment that if asked if he believes leadership entails ‘only making the numbers’, that Mr Mosley would agree. No, he’d say, ‘there is more than just output generation to being a leader, one must live by a code that others can aspire to, you have to stand for something bigger than the job itself”. And if he is ever asked this, and replies with that line, I’d agree.

But somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen in the immediate future.