Employees want good leadership...? I'm shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED...!!

i've been pounding on this point for years... every single goddam book on management and leadership you pick up says virtually the same thing... it's taught in both graduate and undergraduate management programs... it's proudly pointed to as the way the company does business in the opening pages of every corporate annual report... there's only one problem... it isn't practiced, but i guess that's also the american way... we're at our best when we're telling everybody how things should be done but heaven forbid we should do it ourselves...

Money's Nice, but a Good Boss Is Better

When it comes to sizing up the quality of their workplaces, federal workers value strong leadership and straight answers from their bosses more than even pay and benefits, according to a new comprehensive study of the federal workforce.

one of the things i like best about teaching and training non-u.s. folks is when, after making a point about leadership or management, i get the inevitable comment that says, "well, that may work in the u.s., but you gotta understand this is (fill in name of country here)"... that's when i throw back my head and laugh... after looking at all the nonplussed stares, i lean forward conspiratorially and say, "here's a dirty little secret... it doesn't work THERE either because we don't practice what we preach... so, if you figure it out and do it, you'll be WAY ahead of the u.s..."

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MBA programs teach leadership? I think not.

this business college professor demonstrates a profound lack of insight into mba curricula...

Babson College business professor James Hoopes ... has landed a publisher for his book, Hail to the CEO: The Failure of George W. Bush and the Cult of Moral Leadership. “His premise: President Bush, a Harvard University M.B.A. grad, is proof that business schools focus more on leadership than on management.”

i have taught mba courses for 20 years... in a post the other day, i said i would postpone a rant on graduate biz school education for a later time... that time has arrived, but i'll be brief...

the major failures, imho, of graduate biz education in the u.s. are many... one of the biggest is that they DON'T teach LEADERSHIP, they teach MANAGEMENT... oh, sure, there are tons of courses labeled "leadership" (full disclosure: yes, i teach one myself), but, in my experience, few of them even attempt to teach authentic, principled leadership... they are most often taught in the context of learning from the Great Leaders Themselves, folks like iacocca, gates, jobs, packard, dell, bezos, merck, porras, welch, etc., etc...

the above folks are the very ones who have achieved their "success" (i put that in quotes precisely because i seriously question our national definition of "success") by obsessively focusing on shareholders and the bottom line, precisely what they have been taught to do, and precisely what they are rewarded for, often in obscenely excessive ways... what we have posing as business "leaders" in this country are passionately, obsessively driven, profit-at-all-costs MANAGERS, who, yes, have leadership qualities that, imho, are devoid of the one value that i believe makes a leader a leader - a devotion to the common good - the same value, interestingly enough, that's missing in many of our elected officials... coincidence...? i don't think so...

in concluding, i will unequivocally state that george w. bush wouldn't recognize authentic leadership if it bit him in his made-firm-and-fit-by-cycling white ass...

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