The time has come to address leadership at all levels! As Ronald Reagan said when he talked about the American financial system at the time – “If not us, who? And if not now, when?”

My contention is that we should take responsibility, individually and collectively for this. We are all leaders if we have influence or want to influence ideas, issues, and people. Leadership is not a position it is an attitude and as such, while accountability through others and the system in general is important we should hold ourselves accountable, according to the highest standards of behaviour and ethics.

Unfortunately most organizations do not create the climate for this kind of accountability, and often reward leadership behaviour because it is compliance driven. I recently encountered such an example where one of my informal protégés (I coach and mentor this individual), was appointed by a consulting firm to work on an assignment.

After three months, her contract was extended, with an indication that she would then be considered for a permanent appointment. At the end of the second period she was however quite abruptly told that she will not be considered for fulltime employment, as she does not have the potential. She was however requested to stay on for another two months. When she indicated that, for ethical reasons she would not want to burden them for two months, their response was that if they let her go they would lose money and as such they ask her as a favour to stay on.

Having worked with this individual on more than one project, in close contact with her I would like to relate this to my argument about leadership accountability:

- The project manager leader did in all 7 months not once (formally or informally) provide feedback to my protégé regarding performance

- Although not personally involved the project was according to all indications a huge success, with very few or any crisis that is so typical of large scale organization development and change projects

- The relevant projects leader/manager is being considered for junior partner in the firm.

In discussion with my protégé we agreed that any sort of formal labour action is not even part of our paradigm. As professional people with skills we don’t have to resort to this kind of thing – in fact our motto is that “people with skills, don’t need a career path”. What is however sad is that the leader in this case is being rewarded without considering her actual leadership performance. If one considers the research of the Corporate Leadership Council (2006) it shows that clarity about standards, fair and accurate feedback etc are huge leverage areas to improve discretionary effort (but hey, we all know that).

Thing is leaders do not do it, and they are not held accountable. If we cannot do the basics right we should not expect our leaders to do the big things right, for example to be ethical, have marriage fidelity etc?

We get the leaders we deserve!

Article Source:www.skills-universe.com

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