If you have to pick a horse, always back the one called self-interest – colloquial saying
The highest forms of leadership are about service. Purposeful pursuit of the interests of the group and facilitation of better outcomes for all. Sadly, too many senior people are predictably self-interested. Status and power has distorted their understanding of the role of leadership.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely – Lord Acton
Trying to explain another organisation’s decision making this week, I was reminded of the colloquial saying that leads this post. I’ve worked with several people who based their predictive power entirely on its outcomes. They were rarely far off the mark.
For too many senior executives the hierarchy of decision-making is as follows:
- First, Politics – what is best to build my power, my status, my wealth and my faction?
- Then Perception – who would look good to others or make me look good?
The next two are alternatives on the same level
- Cost – everyone and everything is fungible so what’s cheapest and still benefits my profit and loss? or
- Negative reason – how does this prevent something good happening to competitor (usually internal) or to prevent something bad happening to the executive?
- Lastly, Quality – what is the best for the organisation and its stakeholders?
This is a deeply cynical hierarchy. Its internal focus means that the stakeholders for whom an organisation exists are considered very late if at all. One could argue easily that true leadership inverts the list and accepts that with the challenge of leading comes self-sacrifice and service to others.
So what do you do if your organisation looks like one that operates on these rules:
- Bring in external perspectives. External stakeholders and purpose can only be ignored when their views are not in the room.
- Focus on outcomes not power
- Focus on the long term. Many of these behaviours depend on the organisational amnesia that comes from quarterly performance cycles
- Make decision making more transparent and hold leaders accountable for the quality of and outcomes of their decisions.
- Change the systems that reinforce selfishness. From bonuses to performance pay to hiring and promotion, reward executives to get these decisions right.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant – saying
We can grow cynical or we can make change happen that benefits everyone. Some times all it takes is a little sunlight for the leadership culture of an organisation to shift around the quality of decisions.
The best day to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best day is today – saying
