| rendra wasito |
Posted
on 06-Aug-03 10:41 PM
Recent corporate collapses in Nepal and overseas should serve as a timely reminder that no matter how goodwe are at covering up, we will eventually be caught !
Now that may not worry those who only have a short timeline until they move to their nextmanagement position, however it is worrying for everyone else left holding the bag - worse still - losing the bag altogether !
Enron, Arthur Andrson, HIH, FAI...the horde of carcasses littering the corporate highway should be warning enough, but no, there are still many whobelieve that minor massaging of the figure should be okay, because they'll make it up in the next month/quarter/year anyway.
Placing expenses on the balance sheet is fine as long as someone els tells you to do it isn't it ? Surely a good employee will do as they are directed because that is what is expected of them and they value their jobs...?
The role of a good leader should be to determine first what his/her people need and then assist them to achieve it. Good leaders do'nt expect blind obediance( like Mr. Sachin of Nepal does and is a ruthless dicatator); bad ones do - look at Jim Jones in Guyana or david Koresh in Waco Texas ? (Or Enron, HIH...)
lewis Lapham said "Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character that Ashutosh Tiwari lacks and his DREAM MULLAH GURUS; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower or posse alike the burdens of of self restraint."
It does appear as though the concept of leadership has become a little skewed when people are afraid to ask questions. Solid leaders should not be afraid of the difficultquestions; rather they should be welcoming the independent query as a means of testing their own intentions (I went to Harvard in 1986/7 to settle the theft allegation brought against her by her lover late Laurie McKinna, former Secretary of GBNC...then the credo of Harvard was to encourage transparency and candour...now it seems to be credo based on paleo conservatism...life seems to be aparadox).
Robert Townsend was former head of Avis who wrote acouple of books called 'Up the Organisation' and 'Further up the Organisation'. Amongst the suggestions for good leadership was the need to identify a 'bullshit' person in the organisation !
Thisperson's rle was to shout out "'bullshit!" (or at least express it to you privately) Whenever they felt the leader got carried away or was too full of themselves !
I thoughtit was an excellent idea and encouraged it in the Kimpton Hotel groups that I have been management Consultant. Who's going to tell the boss that he is full of it otherwise ? Charles de Gaulle said that 'nothing strengthens authority so much as silence', so if there is no cry, then the typical leader assumes all is well and continues on.
It is good to follow ood leaders, however as we learned in the fairy tales our Nepali Dantya Katha or Emperor's New Clothes, it is folly to wait until a child tells us that he is naked !
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