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May 28, 2009

The Abdication of Leadership

Consensus is the abdication of leadership - Margaret Thatcher

I love clients where there is a strong leader. A person who can review what is going on, work out when she needs additional information, then make a call.

On the other hand - I really do not like clients where it is all management by committee. Everyone talks about it, but nobody actually realizes that they are doing it.

Consensus leadership has long been the great downfall of the left of politics, and one of the key reasons why Europe is rapidly fading as a world power. it is also the reason why governments cannot run businesses, and why anything managed by a committee is boring and achieves less than it could have done.

Consensus leadership is driven by fear. fear that there will be dissension, fear that parts of the crowd will feel excluded, fear that... if it all goes wrong - you will be the person that everyone will be pointing at.

And so you should be. This is the burden of leadership. You are either up to it or not. But don't seize leadership and then squander it by passing everything to a committee..