When making the numbers is mistaken for making the grade, the only route is downwards

Photo: © Yanik Chauvin - Fotolia.com

‘Management by Making the Numbers’ — today’s fashionable choice amongst the macho and the greedy — produces a debased kind of leadership. We can only keep a working environment worthy of a civilized nation by valuing some things more highly than making the numbers. That means accepting ‘the numbers’ won’t be achieved — should not be achieved — if the price paid is the loss of honesty, dignity, integrity and humanity as guiding principles of corporate life.

People under pressure to deliver ‘the numbers’ will usually do so by whatever means are simplest and least risky. In time, that leads to using various unethical approaches, in the same way that it’s easier to get rich by cheating and theft than by working hard. If all top management care about is hitting or exceeding target, they’re likely to overlook little things such bending the rules. They’re especially likely to ignore management bullying, since they can re-interpret it as ’strong leadership’ or ’setting high standards’, and the victims as ‘losers’ and ‘weaklings’. Read the full story