Leadership, Politics and Context
by Miki Saxon
Yesterday I commented on the fact that leadership is dependent on both context and culture to be effective.
In a review of The Leadership Illusion at Leading Blog Michael McKinney says,
This gets to the heart of the leadership illusion: seeing leaders and leadership in one dimension. We ignore the context. When we evaluate the causes of the success or failure of leaders, we tend to “focus predominantly on the individual (sometimes the context), but very rarely both at the same time. The need to see someone as “fabulously successful or woefully inadequate” is strong. … Leadership is not a solo performance.
The importance of context is especially timely because of the upcoming election.
Consider Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, two in a long list of business executives who will tell you that if they can lead successfully in the corporate world they can lead in government.
For the sake of this article we’ll accept their claim to successful corporate leadership.
Now comes the real question: how transferable is that success in the context of government service?
Whitman is running for the CEO slot in California, AKA governor.
When you are a corporate CEO you need a great vision and Whitman had that, but you also need a management structure that supports that vision and works to make it happen—not just a strong senior staff, but the whole management team.
What it really comes down to is support the CEO’s vision or find a new company.
But there is no such power structure available for a governor dealing with the legislature. The governor has little to no say in who is hired, they aren’t likely to leave if they don’t like the vision; they certainly can’t be laid off or fired, their reviews are only done every four years and not by the executive team.
Given that context how many corporate CEOs would succeed?
For an interesting look at a darker context read Dan Gillmor’s article in Salon.
And if you really want to get depressed take a look at this opinion piece on the “Rise of the Richies.”
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brunoagostinho/3952264896/
