The Noise of Leadership Discourse

I have recently been contacted to provide support for two executives in large companies.  Both require support because they are not coping, a formal bullying claim against one raised the alarm bells for one of them and the other clinical depression and alienation sparked the contact.  Both work in excess of 80 hours a week, both work 7 days a week and have been doing so for a year.  Both feel as if the job cannot be completed without them and both have young families.  Both say their life priority is on their partner and family, and it obviously isn’t.  Both struggle with work-life balance and both are trapped and don’t know how to escape.  Both are on a pathway to a breakdown if they don’t do something about it, and that may be the only way they get their break from this destructive cycle.

Now you might say both of these people are stupid but that simply dismisses the real issues and drivers of their situation.  This insane level of working is endemic.  I did some work with a legal firm and all of the partners were clearly alcoholic, none had maintained a relationship, they all worked in excess of 80 hours a week and, all were extremely wealthy.  I was in a business once where the boss slept on the floor of his office, woke up at 4am each day and survived OK on about 5 hours sleep.  He was working in excess of 100 hours a week.
The so called “science” of leadership and the cult-like management movement is a recent phenomena.  It probably started with the work of Fredrick Taylor (1856-1915) and the quest to quantify characteristics of management success and to make them secure and repeatable.  The insitutionalisation of leadership and management theory has developed since the 1960s into its own industry.  The publication of The Effective Executive in 1996 by Peter Drucker probably marks the beginning of the modern movement on management and leadership industry.  This industry has evolved into Departments in Universities, institutes, consultants by the tens of thousands, thousands of books and styles, the evolution of the MBA movement, leadership personality diagnostics and a myriad of theories.  Apart from generating new fads, disseminating information and an income stream for many people, is leadership any better? 

In Australia 42 business schools offer an MBA program.  The Graduate Management Association of Australia (GMAA) was founded in 1993 as an amalgam of a range of state associations and it ranks the quality of MBA programs annually.  One of the most prominent and expensive Executive Schools of Management is out of Melbourne University, Mt Eliza Executive Education.  On average, a 5 day course at Mt Eliza costs $10,000 per individual.  With groups of 12, that’s quite an income stream for 5 days training.  There are many other institutes and organisations which offer some form of executive education.  Does this form of education create better thinkers or does it create follows of a particular school of leadership theory?  I have seen many clones of the MBA cult, and they can’t think creatively or critically.  I have worked with many executives in government who are simply experienced clones of the Public Service System, indeed, that’s how one gets promoted, this is the fundamental of cultural fit.  Many of the cultures of the corporates and government don’t change, because the people it needs to change, leave it or are shuffled out.

I look at conference programs too, and it always seems to be Department heads, professors and CEO’s of large corporations who speak on leadership.  This further perpetuates the myth that big is beautiful, greed is good and leadership is power.  This is the kind of leadership which generated the Global Financial Crisis and triggered the “Occupy” grassroots movement against a leadership without justice, compassion and perspective.  This kind of leadership gives itself a 70% pay rise while denying workers 3%.  This kind of leadership puts profits over people and fails to understand that enough is enough.  Peculiarly, many of this cult of leadership as they approach death and old age begin to do pro bono work, focus on charity and try to reconnect with their lost children.

I just finished reading the story of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, an amazing book and Steve Jobs was an amazing person but clearly psychopathic in behaviour and incredibly dysfunctional.  Yes, he may have changed the world but at what cost?  He abused most people, including close friends.  He neglected relationships, alienated children but when faced with his own death said:
'Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important'. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.

Jobs said this in 2005 at Stanford University.  Towards the end of his life he worked hard to reconnect with alienated family and build stronger ties with his immediate family.  He lived to see the graduation of his son Reed from High School which Jobs described as one of the happiest days of his life.

I met some small business managers the other day, two women dressed in power suits, talking about ASX 200 companies and fully baptised in the management-leadership industry.  The discourse of success was connected to top tier thinking, not critical thinking.  There was no time to listen nor understand.  The discourse was laced with pragmatism, power and “leadership speak”.  This kind of speak is immersed in spin as truth and jargon as meaningful. 

It doesn’t matter whether its in small business or tier 1 companies, leaders who are not interested in learning don’t lead, they manage.  I meet many executives in large companies and in government, they have no time to read and the material they read often confirms the agenda of the MBA mentalitie - success, pragmatism and power.  Lots of noise in the leadership industry about itself but look for the words that are missing from this discourse - compassion, justice and learning.