In Australia, Prime Ministers are not elected by the people. Political parties determine their leaders and, following national elections, a particular political party (or coalition of parties) is elected to govern and the leader of that party then becomes Prime Minister. As has been graphically illustrated in the Kevin Rudd situation, a failure to engage both the general populace and your party colleagues, can lead to a rapid demise.
I note that apparently some of our business leaders (particularly in the retail arena) are using various forms of subterfuge in order to catch "slackers" at work. It seems that they feel their sales figures would be improved if people worked harder and so they want to find out who is not working as hard as perhaps they could. Clearly there is an associated implication that any "slackers" so discovered will have committed a "career limiting" activity!
I suggest that a better approach might be to improve the quality of leadership.
Most people want to do a good job. That which stops them tends to be problems in the quality of leadership or in some systems issue within the organisation. Those familiar with the concepts of Total Quality and the work of Edwards Deming will understand this.
If an organisation is not meeting the performance required, the first place to look is at the leadership. If the leader is failing to engage those with whom he or she is working, performance becomes a random variable!
I'd like to know what you think about this. Please post comments below.
More information about Doug Long at http://www.dglong.com
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