Over the last generation or so, the concept of leadership has been kidnapped by MBAs in grey suits and twisted out of all recognition

(This is a guest post by John Fletcher. John is an Englishman now resident in Europe, with a long career in the public sector in several countries. He has spent a good deal of time in working environments outside the Anglo-Saxon world, and has written and lectured on organizational issues.)

Field Marshal Alexander
(Photo: Imperial War Museum)

Field Marshal Lord Alexander of Tunis was a famous British general of the Second World War, although not a particularly successful one. It was once cruelly said of him that he had every quality required to be a successful general — except the ability to lead troops in battle. He was intelligent, cultivated, a natural diplomat and a good manager. He was just not very good at winning battles.

It may seem strange that an army — or any other organization — would promote such a person so far. But organizations, including armies, are organized for normal times.

People who become leaders in large organizations tend to be skilled at manipulating the system to their advantage when conditions are normal. The system promotes those who stick with the consensus, have safe opinions and are good at moving paper around. This is all fair enough . . . until things get rough.

A paradox of leadership today

These are the kinds of leaders organizations have always had, but there is a particular paradox about leadership today.

Leaders have never been more worshipped than now; paid such phenomenal salaries; had so many adulatory articles written about them. More books are written about how to be a leader, and more training courses offered on leadership, than ever before in human history. Yet the quality of leadership — in business, in government and administration, and in politics — has probably never been lower.

Perhaps it isn’t a paradox at all

Over the last generation or so, the concept of leadership has been kidnapped by MBAs in grey suits and tortured beyond recognition. Leadership has been redefined as thinking and speaking in approved leadership clichés — essentially doing what every other self-styled leader does.

In business, leadership now means following every demand of the stock markets without question. In administration, it means faking enthusiasm for the fifth fundamental reorganization in ten years, even if that makes nonsense of the preceding four. In politics, it means surrendering to opinion pollsters, spin doctors and the wishes of the rich and powerful. Today’s leaders are really followers: hired enforcers implementing the designs of others in the systems they are paid so extravagantly to lead.

Our vocabulary of leadership is corrupted

Strategy now means a list of things you are already doing. Vision means what you might do next year. Values are those things on a PowerPoint slide that no-one can ever quite remember. Above all, if you hear your leaders talking about courage, duck: it usually means they have something unpleasant in mind for your organization, and for you.

It doesn’t take courage to obey the stock markets, but to defy them. It doesn’t take bravery to tell the poor they will have to accept lower pensions, but to tell the rich they will have to pay higher taxes. Yet to be a leader today means, as the Balkan proverb says, kissing the hand you cannot bite. It also means never having to say you’re sorry. Today’s leadership heroes rarely accept that they are responsible for the failure of their plans. If all goes wrong, they will first ensure they are taken care of: risk-taking itself has been redefined as risking other peoples’ money and future welfare — never the leader’s own.

Then something goes wrong . . .

Every now and then, things get serious and we need real leaders in a hurry. General Alexander, amiable as he was, was shunted aside to make way for the (then unknown) Montgomery, who was less of a diplomat, but rather better at winning battles.

We too need real leaders again. The world is moving into a series of political and economic crises, which will have nothing in common with the fake crises of leadership literature, and which cannot be resolved by sacking people and closing down institutions.

There are a dozen or so potential crises from which we could pick, but near the top of most people’s lists would be the disintegration of the American economy, global food shortages, and natural disasters caused by climate change.

What distinguishes these, and similar, challenges, is that they need real leaders, with real strategies and real vision, to deal with them — or at least to avoid the worst. Sadly, over the last generation, such people have been quietly selected out of organizations both public and private, to make way for ‘PowerPoint jockeys’ who are intellectually and morally unequipped to deal with really bad things when they happen.

We are certainly going to need real leaders again soon. The question is whether there are any left.

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