LEADING FROM THE FRONT

Oh where, tell me where, have our bonnie leaders gone? So many of the grievous problems that currently beset our institutions and companies emanate from a lack of leadership. It is easy, but sloppy, to single out individuals who have erred here and there, often mightily. They may have demonstrably fouled up personally but really the basic fault is usually a deeper cultural one in an organisation which has lost its way. A new leader must normally be found to get the institution back on the rails.

A case in point is News International. Once a lively if unbalanced, collection of papers and media interests, at least in the UK, suffused with the prejudices and enmities of Rupert Murdoch, it finally lost its “moral compass”. Spectacular and useful investigative journalism was degraded into phone hacking, harassment, bribing of police and prison officers and all the influence peddling laid bare by the Leveson Inquiry and the hearings of the Parliamentary Culture Committee. With Rupert Murdoch now an old man and his son James and senior executives allegedly implicated, a complete changing of the guard looks overdue. An industry which fostered Horatio Bottomley, Northcliffe, Beaverbrook, Robert Maxwell and Conrad Black is always likely to have more than its fair share of colourful characters, but public patience with infamy can only be stretched so far.

Murdoch: End of an Innings

King: The Buck stops here

      

                           

Inevitably we also think of the great banks, RBS, Barclays, Lloyds and HSBC. Who can deny that they have lost their way? A generation ago those who worked in banks (I did myself) inherited a work ethic and at least a residual feeling that they were custodians or trustees of a long-established and valuable institution. Alas, much of this disappeared with Big Bang in 1986 as globalisation took over and bankers ceased to know their customers. High rewards turned the heads of top executives. Bob Diamond and Jerry del Missier were no doubt consummate deal-doers in the dog-eat-dog world of investment banking, but how could the Board of Barclays Bank have believed they were remotely suitable to be the torch-bearers as CEO and COO of a culturally conservative UK institution? How did such madness take hold?

By then of course, the great banks were being run for the benefit of their senior executives – forget about the ordinary staff, the shareholders, the customers or the depositors. In recent weeks alone, these banks have been caught up in scandals involving the manipulation of LIBOR, mis-sold insurance, malfunctioning IT and Mexican money-laundering to add to a long litany of previous shortcomings. This heaps shame on the City and tarnishes a bright jewel in our economic crown. Yet the Governor of the Bank of England since 2003, Sir Mervyn King, on whose watch all these scandals occurred, remains in office. No doubt he has made strenuous efforts to deal with these problems but he is supposed to lead and in part control the City. He has comprehensively failed and in the words of Cromwell “For God’s sake, Go!”

My final failing institution is the BBC, once held in high public esteem and affection. The public service broadcasting ethic was a high ideal and from Reith’s day onwards brought first-class culture and entertainment to the nation. Inevitably the changing face of Britain altered the flavour but people like Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day and David Attenborough, or programmes like The Goons, Till Death Us Do Part or TW3 were hugely influential and national events were covered with professional aplomb. TV and radio channels have proliferated enormously and the BBC is now one of many. The feeble recent coverage of the Jubilee is a symptom of decline, while very high salaries and tax avoidance payment structures are characteristic of a disconnection between the institution and the luckless taxpayer providing the funding. A slimmer and more transparent business model needs to be introduced.

By the way, am I alone in feeling my flesh creep every time I watch a heavily scripted BBC despatch from some trouble spot? Dan in the studio squeezes himself in a know-all orgy of self-congratulation as he pronounces “Keith, there is clearly much sectarian tension out there between the Hausa and the Ibo”. Keith, clad in a flak-jacket and tin hat replies in oleaginous tones “Yes, Dan, you’re quite right, the tension here is palpable…etc “. How I long for Keith to say “No, Dan, you misunderstand the situation completely” or much better, “Why, Dan, do you talk such bollocks!”… but it never comes. The whole exercise is redundant anyway as neither Dan nor Keith nor the viewing public give a toss about the Hausa, the Ibos or their tensions.

Sorrell: WPP Dynamo

Branson: Virgin's Leader

                           

Enough gloom and doom, the good news is that there is plenty leadership talent in the UK. Many leaders are abrasive and difficult fellows and you would not care to be marooned on a desert island with them: but they can run organisations. Just to mention a few, there is much to admire in the way Sir Martin Sorrell has transformed tiny WPP into perhaps the leading advertising company in the world: or recently the leadership of Sir Christopher Gent at the helm of mighty Vodafone and that of Sir Moir Lockhead driving forward FirstGroup. Sir John Buchanan successfully guides Smith and Nephew to ever higher dividend payments. There can be few more prominent company leaders than Sir Richard Branson at Virgin Group, who has probably made dozens of mistakes but bounces back tenaciously and leads from the front.

These are the types of personality who can reinvigorate the boardrooms of our stumbling entities and restore their credibility. Shuffle the leadership pack now!

SMD

4.08.12

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2012