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Losing the Managerial Mojo
Posted: 04/13/2007, 5:09 PM PT
What happens when
the leader loses his ability to lead?
For the most part, it simply means that the leader ceases to be able to command
authority and rally the workforce behind the leader's vision for the organization.
In other words, leaders lose their credibility with the people they command. And,
there is nothing that will cause a manager or executive to lose credibility faster
than to act as if the rules don't apply to him.
The latest sad example: World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.
Wolfowitz joined the World Bank in 2005 after a controversial stint as President
Bush's point man in Iraq. Shortly after starting his new job, he directed the
bank's vice president for human resources to approve an extremely generous pay
and promotion package for a woman described in various media as his "girlfriend."
According to The New York Times, Wolfowitz's memo to the HR vice president was
detailed and pointed, virtually dictating the kind of job she should be given.
"I now direct you to agree to a proposal which includes the following terms and
conditions," Wolfowitz wrote to the HR VP. "You should accept immediately her
offer to be detailed to an outside institution of her choosing while retaining
bank salary and benefits."
The "outside institution" the girlfriend was "detailed to" was the State Department,
and her salary has been increased twice since she has been there by a total of
$61,000. She now earns $193,590 annually, and although she now works at State,
she is still on the World Bank payroll.
Not only is this a gross conflict of interest for Wolfowitz, but the World Bank
board now says that neither the board's ethics committee nor general counsel ever
was informed or approved of this arrangement. Wolfowitz has apologized for his
actions, but as with Don Imus, it only seems to have made matters worse. The World
Bank employees' staff association now says that its members have lost faith in
Wolfowitz's ability to lead and are demanding his resignation.
There is a lot of rhetoric surrounding this situation, but the average person
will see this for what it is: The new boss used the power of his position to enrich
and reward a woman he is involved with who is also on his payroll. Sleeping with
a subordinate is never a good idea (it was once described to me as "Don't fish
off the company pier."), but Wolfowitz compounded the problem exponentially when
he played Henry Higgins with her pay and career.
I don't understand why executives like Paul Wolfowitz don't have the good sense
to get out when schemes like this are discovered. Not only have his egregious
actions been discovered, but he's completely lost his ability to lead and effectively
do his job. When will he finally figure out there's not much else left?
Next Post: 8. Sizing Up Candidates—The Two-Minute Rule
I get lots of press releases in the course of a week, and few of them catch my eye. However, this one did: A Robert Half International Survey of senior Canadian executives says that it takes 12 minutes, on average, for the executives to form an opinion about a job seeker they are interviewing.
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John Hollon
Workforce Management editor John Hollon is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years' experience as a newspaper, magazine, Internet and business journal editor. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from California State University, Long Beach, and an MBA from Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management.
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Previous Posts
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Circuit City’s decision to get rid of some 3,400 workers because they were getting paid “well above the market-based salary range for their role,” according to the company, seemed to me to be a curious way to handle your workforce. Why would a company struggling to compete with strong competitors like Best Buy think that canning the highest-paid (and therefore, probably its best) workers is a winning workforce strategy?
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JetBlue is finally growing up. CEO David Neeleman and his team have lived a charmed existence during their eight years in business, and the press has been generally positive and supportive. That’s all well and good, but nothing lasts forever.
3. Culture Clash the Culprit at Tribune
There are a lot of issues behind the sale this week of the Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and a number of other newspapers and TV stations, to Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell, but the No. 1 issue in my book comes down to a culture clash.
4. How to Fire Up the Troops
Want to know how to rally the workforce and get people excited about following you into a tough battle against your business competition? Here’s the formula as demonstrated this week by Dell CEO Michael Dell:
5. Job Cuts vs. the “War for Talent”
It’s hard to get shocked anymore by businesses cutting jobs. In some sectors—like newspapers, where The Tampa Tribune this week announced a cut of 70 staff positions—layoffs and cutbacks have become so common that they have ceased to be newsworthy since they seem to happen every day. And that is exactly why yesterday’s big layoff announcement from banking giant Citigroup was so surprising.
6. Losing the Managerial Mojo
7. Sizing Up Candidates—The Two-Minute Rule
I get lots of press releases in the course of a week, and few of them catch my eye. However, this one did: A Robert Half International Survey of senior Canadian executives says that it takes 12 minutes, on average, for the executives to form an opinion about a job seeker they are interviewing.
8. Soft Skills, Outsourcing and Working Until You Drop
I’ve been on the road for the past week, so my apologies for being away from the blog during that time. Here are some interesting surveys that came across my desk while I was gone.
9. Some Conference Speakers Worth Hearing
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