Month: May 2012

Depending on how you count, Harry Stonecipher was the first to be canned because of Cupid. Stonecipher was 68 at the time (in 2005), married, and chief executive officer of Boeing. What did Stonecipher do that was so bad he was summarily dismissed? He had an affair with a female subordinate.
It was not, swore the board, the affair itself. Rather, said a board representative, it was “the circumstances surrounding the affair, we just thought there were some issues of poor judgment that … impaired [Stonecipher’s] ability to lead going forward.”
Mark Hurd was fired for similar cause (in 2011). He too was married and he too was chief executive officer of one of America’s best known companies, Hewlett Packard. Hurd was ensnared in a relationship with an “adult” movie actress, who ostensibly was hired as hostess at HP client events. In this case too the board denied it dismissed Hurd because of the affair per se. Rather it concluded that Hurd had used HP’s resources inappropriately – and lied in the process.
Nor, despite his best efforts, did the former CEO of Stryker , Stephen MacMillan, fare any better . MacMillan was forced out (in 2012) because the board was unhappy with how he handled his relationship with former flight attendant, a company employee, while he and his wife were getting a divorce. The board made clear MacMillan had “never violated any company policy nor any code of conduct.” Moreover, unlike Stonecipher and Hurd, MacMillan had explicitly sought the permission of the board to pursue his new relationship. To no avail – MacMillan was obliged by Stryker to resign.
What’s going on here? Are board members so straight-laced they cannot conceive of a leader who strays from his marriage? Hardly. What they worry about in new and different ways are the new and different ways personal behavior can become a professional liability. The thought of even one scandalous Facebook post is enough to convert 21st century boards into 17th century puritans.

As I write in one of my books – Followership – Diehards are as their name implies. They are followers, ordinary people, prepared to die if necessary for their cause, whether an individual, an idea, or both. Diehards are deeply devoted to their leaders; or, in contrast, they are ready to remove them from positions of power, authority, and influence by any means necessary. Diehards are defined by their dedication, including their willingness to risk life and limb. Being a Diehard is all-consuming. It is who you are. It is what you do.
It’s rather an old story by now – which explains why we’re inured to its implications. But of the approximately 12,000 people who died in Syria in the last 15 months, a good number were Diehards, willing to risk it all to try to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Assad is a brutal dictator, the son of another brutal dictator, Hafez al-Assad. The Assads, father and son in succession, have ruled Syria for over forty years. So far as Diehards are concerned, that’s long enough. They are so fed up they figure they have nothing to lose.
As the violence in Syria continues, the world dithers. Neither NATO, nor the loose coalition known as the Friends of Syria, nor the United Nations with its misplaced assist from former Secretary General Kofi Annan, has stopped the strife. Why? Because every one of the various leaders is risk averse.
Nothing has made this as blindingly clear as the most recent meeting of NATO in Chicago this week. Nearly every NATO leader has publicly condemned Assad, and called for him to step down. But when they met in Chicago the subject of Syria never even came up. Instead the alliance simply stuck to its previous position, that it has “no intention whatsoever to intervene.” How heartening to hear – how heartening to Assad! And what a contrast between NATO’s leaders and Syria’s Diehard followers! The latter are willing to die for what they believe, while the former are satisfied to let the killing continue while they stand by and do nearly nothing.

Love might mean never having to say you’re sorry. But leadership does not. In fact, leaders feel so vulnerable right now they can’t say sorry quickly enough. Most don’t even bother trying to explain themselves or to justify what happened.
This week alone there have been three high profile apologies. Mitt Romney insisted he didn’t remember bullying anyone in high school (though there was good evidence he did), but that did not preclude him from apologizing anyway. I don’t remember all the pranks, he said, but “if I did stupid things, why, I’m afraid I’ve got to say sorry for it.” Joe Biden apologized to Barack Obama for putting him in a position in which he just about had to promptly and publicly declare his support for same-sex marriage. And Jamie Dimon apologized for JPMorgan’s $2 billion blunder.
In fact, Jamie Dimon apologized once, and then twice, and then thrice, and then again, having apparently concluded that frequent displays of contrition were in his best interest. Once Dimon admitted that he himself had been “dead wrong.” More often he couched his apology in the collective, deflecting personal responsibility by resorting to the proverbial “we” or to an abstraction such as “the bank” – as in “we made a terrible, egregious mistake” or the bank’s strategy was “flawed, complex, poorly reviewed, poorly executed, and poorly monitored.”
Apologies quickly and apparently authentically tendered tend to defuse the situation. But make no mistake. People might, if they are so inclined, forgive a leader. But they will not forget – which is why apologies must be strictly rationed. Leaders who choose to accept blame and express regret should consider their apology a chip that can be used only once. For publicly to confess to a serious mistake or to wrongdoing is to expose yourself the world over as ineffectual or unethical (or both) – which is why no 21st century leader is likely to survive an apology a second time.

Boring, boring, boring. I know, I know. But what could I do? I had no choice. I had no choice but to give another Lame Leader of the Week Award to another CEO of another Too Big to Fail American bank, this time to Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase. As recently as April, Dimon was dismissing reports his bank was making bets so big they were distorting a market in credit derivatives. Such reports were, he insisted, “a complete tempest in a teapot.” But just a few weeks later Dimon was forced by facts to eat crow, to publicly admit JPMorgan’s losses of more than $2 billion were a wound that was “self inflicted.”
Whatever Dimon’s previous reputation as one of the few leaders on Wall Street to have escaped the financial crisis nearly unscathed, there’s no escaping blame for losses this size. There are only two possibilities. Either Dimon was ignorant of what his subordinates were up to. Or he knew what they were doing and approved of bets that turned out a colossal mistake. Either way his heyday – if not his pay day – is over. Either way there’s blood in the water and sharks nearby.

The defeat of French President Nicolas Sarkozy by Socialist candidate Francois Hollande was long predicted. What was not foretold even as recently as a year ago was the astonishing fragility of European governments more generally. Since the start of the debt crisis, no fewer than 16 nations in the EU – well over half the total – have seen a change of government. Defeats, resignations, and votes of no confidence pockmark the continent, with no apparent end in sight. Even Europe’s stronger leaders, such as England’s David Cameron and Germany’s Angela Merkel, are in precarious positions as voters in both countries threaten their ability to cut a deal. This is not, moreover, a manifestation of a particular political sentiment. Governments from both the left and the right have been forced to relinquish power.

So what’s the problem? Is it, as many argue, a lack of leadership? Is it, as European Parliament member Udo Bullmann claims, “too few people leading European governenments who have the courage to appear in front of people at home” and tell them the hard truth? Not at all. In fact, most of those who have fallen furthest fastest have done just that, telling their people there is work to be done, work that necessarily includes their own willingness to sacrifice.

Rather the problem lies with fed up followers, with ordinary people too many of whom want something for nothing, with ordinary people who have the patience of a gnat, with ordinary people whose level of tolerance for anything other than instant gratification is low. I do not for one moment dismiss the fact that since the financial crisis times have been tough, particularly for those who are out of work and for those having a hard time making ends meet. But this is not their problem – our leaders’ problem. It’s our problem – it’s a problem that requires collective, collaborative solutions in which large numbers of people will have to play their part. 

Meantime, on this side of the Atlantic, I venture to guess that Barack Obama is watching with trepidation his European counterparts toppling.  Voters refusal to cut their leaders some slack cannot be said to bode well for his own political future.