Our previous blog outlined the concept of a Leadership Fitness Continuum.
Any MisLeadership will push actual leadership fitness down toward diabolical leadership, while examples of Globally Fit Leadership will push it up toward higher leadership fitness. We may think of these as opposites of the same coin, so for example as decision making becomes more effective, the extent of Missing Leadership dwindles and overall fitness of leadership increases, leading to automatic improvement in wellbeing of humanity.
There is, however, a fascinating and crucial twist. The above implies the result of the interaction of all the elements of MisLeadership and Global Business Fitness would be a particular leadership fitness level. The question is whether everyone would view this fitness in the same way. Those benefiting from existing leadership actions are likely to view their lives as close to ideal and thus current leadership as very fit, while those suffering extreme poverty and ill-health know their lives are close to hell on earth and current leadership is diabolical.
We picture this as a see-saw, with winners sitting at the top end and losers at the bottom. In a playground, the child at the lower end of the see-saw has the power to kick off the ground so they can have a turn at the top. On the Leadership Fitness See-Saw, however, it is those at the top who have most power so are able to maintain their position indefinitely – a ‘win-lose’ outcome. The more determined and able such leaders become, the more of a lop-sided effect their actions have, with increased upward force for those benefiting but consequential downward force for those suffering. This links very well with the Drucker quote:
No century has seen more leaders with more charisma than our 20th century and never have political leaders done greater damage than the four great charismatic leaders of (that) century. Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and Mao. What matters is not charisma. What matters is whether the leader leads in the right direction or misleads.
As stated above, we argue that humanity’s current position is one where the see-saw is very significantly tilted such that different people have vastly different circumstances. Further, the situation is becoming increasingly biased toward the rich and powerful such that the see-saw is tipping increasingly on its end - and we may all soon fall off! This could be thought of as looming system failure as indicated by the growing number of urgent global issues, many of which are of recent origin, whose number and scale is clear evidence that there are fundamental and growing flaws in how we are running the planet. A global society has to have global leadership to survive.
Our see-saw implies that one of the main reasons for the increasingly urgent position humanity finds itself in, with so little action taking place to rectify the crisis, may be that the people with the power to act tend to be those who believe they are riding high so have a vested interest in the status quo. These people may be reluctant to change unless they recognize and are concerned about the situation faced by those at the other end, the billions suffering from lack of food, water and shelter who see their environment as highly toxic and close to hell.
Because the level of inequity is so high, from a global perspective actual leadership fitness must be at a low level. Evidence of inequity came with the announcement last week that the average earnings of directors of FTSE 100 companies was £2.7 million last year, compared to the average national wage of £26,000. That is more than 100 times as much. These are by no means extremes when we consider average income in the Congo of $300 a year, compared to the wealth of the richest person in the world of $74 Billion, which is 250 million times as much. How could anyone even dream of justifying such inequality? No wonder people like those occupying Wall Street and St Paul's have said "enough"!
Our next blog comments on the resignations of St Paul's church officals.
