Can you teach Authentic Leadership? from Caret on Vimeo.

A quick video we shot this morning after two colleagues, Rob Sykes and Steve Botham,  had spoken at a really enjoyable Caret breakfast event in Birmingham.   Rob was outlining some of their shared work on the Power of Authentic Leadership, followed by searching and astute questions from the 20 or so city leaders who joined us.

An article by Steve and Rob expanding on the issue of Authentic Leadership appeared in a recent issue of Municipal Journal.

We have watched, shouted, cajoled and advised as arm chair spectators - and at times we will have been incredulous at the antics of Sir Alan Sugar’s latest batch of would-be apprentices. Now we sit back and ask “did he make the right choice?”. 

I thought Lee had blown it; he lied on his CV and he repeated his lie in the interview with that nice (but obviously not dumb) Bordan on the interview panel. It begs the question about how much Sir Alan can trust Lee? And, maybe when things get difficult in his new role, will the new £100,000 apprentice suddenly find he has other memory lapses or moments of high career creativity?

I felt Claire was the one - she was enthusiastic, bright and had good ‘bouncebackability’. There has been some speculation that Sir Alan was intimidated by her direct style and confidence and is more comfortable with ‘blokes’. On reflection though, I think Sir Alan made the right choice (from a not very convincing group of people whose sole qualification for the programme seemed to be a high dose of self delusion). I baulk at the CV lies but what we did see in Lee was a much better leader than we saw in Claire.

There are two key things in Lee’s favour:

1.  What would he be like to work for - will he raise the contribution he gets from his team? He has the ability to get on with all (well, most) of his colleagues, whereas Claire was part of a group that took delight in hacking great chunks out of each other. He demonstrated great energy and enthusiasm and showed he could lead as well as be a hard-working team member. Claire is good on her own, especially in a sales situation, but that does not make a great £100,000 job applicant. Working for her could be like working for a very self-opinionated steam roller… woe betide someone who gets in the way! Working for Lee could be fun, energising and exciting (although you might want to check the veracity of any marketing materials he puts out!).
2. Lee’s second winning driver is who would you like to work for you? If the apprentice is to become a real asset to Sir Alan’s business empire he or she needs to be a strong team player and someone who will listen to and learn from the master. He needs to take instruction and deliver what is needed.  But he also needs to perform at a senior level - and be credible with Sir Alan’s clients.

Lee faced a fierce jury in the past three months - the general public has yet again been caught up with his antics and those of his colleagues. He now faces a smaller but more influential jury within Sir Alan’s organisation. He needs to prove himself worthy of his role in a demanding business. Too many of this years applicants were strutting egos “I am probably the best sales person in Europe”, “I get on with prince and pauper”, “I expect to be a billionaire within the next year” “I am the most accurate cross stitcher in my village” (perhaps I made the last one up). Lee was self assured with a touch of humanity, he supported and encouraged others, he enthused customers and colleagues. He is expected to operate at a senior level - I think the evidence says he is the one that can lead the best, that’s why he was chosen. Yes its back to leadership - as Lee might say, “C’mon, that’s what I’m talking about.”

Some Midlands based research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently looked at ‘Routes and barriers to citizen governance‘. It discovered that many groups feel marginalised from the political process. Maybe no great surprise given the low voting in recent local government elections. But it comes at a time when, nationally, Government want citizens to be more engaged in their communities - to shape the services they receive and to help develop their neighbourhoods.

The research focused on the importance of strong community leadership to raise the level and impact of community governance. I was asked to address the issues of community leadership at the launch of the report and highlighted a few key themes:

1. Community leadership can be a battleground between councillors and local activists with different agendas and values. It has to be a partnership if the community is not to become paralysed.
2. Trust is at the heart of effective community leadership. Trust is about honesty, competence, accessibility, commitment and a good understanding of local needs.
3. Amazingly, many leaders do not know how they come across or how they impact others. The report recognised that many councillors provide excellent leadership, but others haven’t a clue about how to impact young people, different ethnic groups, council officers etc. Leaders without good self awareness will always struggle to make things happen.
4. Community leaders need followers (they can look rather foolish without them!). Followers come when the leader champions the community and champions the different talents within it - engaging people and listening to their ideas. At the heart of this is the leader’s ability to give power to others.
5. I would encourage leaders to reflect on their impact and to be much more deliberate in finding ways to maximise not just the number of followers, but also the quantity of their followers’ contribution.

Community leadership is something you work at with feedback from others, a generous attitude and a commitment to putting the community’s success above your own ego.

It seems so fluffy this thing called trust. Perhaps it is fluffy until such time as the P&L or the Reputation of a business takes a hit because of alleged or actual wrongdoing. Such has been the fate of Lee Kun-hee the Chairman of Samsung which is South Korea’s largest conglomerate turning over $150bn. So, Mr Lee and three other top executives suddenly resigned two days ago following a year of allegations of financial wrongdoing - he was indicted on charges of tax evasion and breach of trust.

Commenting on the resignations, the Financial Times said, “The move is unprecedented in corporate Korea, where tycoons usually continue to run business groups even after being convicted of serious white-collar crimes. It comes as Samsung faces rising competition from emerging Chinese rivals”.

Breach of trust? Mr Lee’s father established the company 70 years ago. He’s run it since the 1980’s.

This charge comes at a time when a number of elements are combining to create a possible perfect storm for South Korea:

• a global market turmoil
• a new government which only came into power two months ago
• rising competition from emerging Chinese rivals

Curious isn’t it that while good governance is never a guarantee of business success, bad governance can really be bad news with huge implications.

Back to the FT. “After months of investigating, a special prosecutor last week concluded that Mr Lee, the chairman, had breached his financial duty by letting his children buy bonds of Samsung’s affiliates through irregular financial transactions, incurring losses at the companies”.

Perhaps, even in hard-nosed business, trust is not such a fluffy thing after all. What do you think?

See also:

EnGadget

3gweek.net

RJ Koehler