On Governance & Leadership
Sometimes, as a contrarian, I find it easier to begin a discourse with what something is not as opposed to what it is – from there one
is obligated then to define what it is. Leadership is NOT walking out the door
in the morning with your finger in the wind, leadership is NOT monitoring poles,
leadership is NOT permitting yourself for popularity's sake to relinquish principle
and leadership is NOT letting one's core responsibilities go wanting.
Leadership is permitting a harmonic to occur between one’s
own knowledge and beliefs, and what emanates from the group sourcing exercise that
is life. In other words, one needs to take direction and promote that direction
– true leadership means defending and promoting that direction even in the face
of adversity. We have a system that is called a reverse hierarchy in our democracy;
the people in leadership are subject to the perceptions, wants, needs and
desires of those “being led”. The challenge for those in leadership is to
manage that interface, too often; direction is sacrificed in fear of the “loss
of power”.
The reality of the reverse hierarchy as it co-exists with
democracy is, that leadership tends to migrate to influence; this pull is
tectonic in nature, nearly impossible to withstand. This reality has generated
a Faustian circumstance in public policy, where short-term political survival is
pursued at the cost of long-term societal concern. We have a 1000-year management
horizon with a 4 year accountability cycle, and accountability is viewed by
leadership as the enemy, as it, as often as not, has negative outcomes in the
world of public opinion.
People are a product of their environment; let’s avoid “fundamental
attribution error” here please. We have exceptional people in leadership, we
have a system that takes them from being driven and on task, to fickle and
popularity sensitive. As political leadership
contemplates the justification for a 180-degree turn on an issue, the people at the large watch, they see incongruence in the actions of leadership – system integrity begins to wane and cynicism grows. Worst though, the important
things fail to get done.
We have to repair the environment that people are expected
to work in, we need first to have leaders say,” mission is more important
than my reelection” and most importantly we need accountability. Democracy has
no commitment to truth, it spins dialogue to curry favour with the electorate. So we need to make metrics and monitoring a mandatory
attachment to policy. When the leadership says we are introducing this legislation
to generate a given outcome, then there needs to be objective monitoring of
outcomes. With the introduction of legislation, there needs to be a clear
mission stated for the legislation, and the metrics and indicators that monitor
the outcomes relative to the mission. Then the unfettered and objective reporting
to the public – then, like in business – leadership is tied to the bottom line,
whether the bottom line is surplus or social welfare.
More thoughts on management and leadership - Click link below.
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