« Choice podcasts | Main | Unfixing Microsoft's Firewire "fix" »
July 20, 2005
When the boss is an idiot
Leon Gettler's got a fascinating story about a Melbourne Business School survey which shows that most managers are less than impressed by the intelligence and competence of their CEOs. CEOs, in turn, rate the chairman of the board or ministerial head just as badly. (Too bad there aren't any figures on the opinion of the average worker about all of them, because we suspect they'd be even less complimentary.)
"If leadership starts at the top," the report concludes, "then there is no wonder that there's not much of it in Australian organisations." [We're not quite sure if we know exactly what that means, but clearly, it's not good.]
Maybe all the guff we've been given about leadership has been leading us up the garden path. Maybe instead of relying on our leaders to select those who would lead us, we should be seeking more input from the poor bastards who are going to have to follow them?.
What's interesting is that baby boomers tend to think more highly of their CEOs than the younger generations. Leon suggests that's because more baby boomers are CEOs. We suspect it's because "existentialists" - those born between 1955 and 1963 - and Generation Xers (1964-79) are less likely to want to admit the bleeding obvious, preferring, apparently, not to notice that the leader is marching boldly towards the cliff face.
Posted by cw at July 20, 2005 11:57 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://bleedingedge.com.au/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/631
Comments
Everyone rises to their level of incompetence. Laurence J. Peter
I know its a cynical and perhaps tired expression but likely true.
Posted by: Stuart Norton at July 20, 2005 02:15 PM