Dissecting the various components of leadership keeps many an academic and blogger busy for years and years. It is such a fascinating subject. Do we really know what the right blend is for extraordinary leadership? We keep writing, reading and analyzing. The following article gives a great perspective to discuss. Think about those you have worked with who you see as exemplary leaders. What are the attributes that make you believe in them? For me, it is the willingness to be a truth seeker and a truth teller. It is one who is willing to look and re-look and be accountable when situations backfire. The rest of leadership, charisma, intellectual brilliance, great wit, are all window dressing. Give me someone who is willing to “own” his or her part of a situation, that is someone I will trust and be willing to follow.
On Leadership: BP, Dell, Wall Street –where have the corporate heros gone??
Amy M. Wilkinson is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Business and Government and a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Somehow America has forgotten that our vibrant economy, the mass majority of our jobs, and the products we use every day are a result of strong business leadership.
When was the last time you went to the grocery store to find fresh fruit, sliced turkey, toilet paper or deodorant? The CEOs of Safeway, Giant, Whole Foods and many other retailers enable our lives.
Yes, there are leaders who have violated our trust and profoundly mismanaged their organizations. Yet, the vast majority of CEOs create jobs for more than 80 percent of America’s workers. In recent years, Google has created 22,000 jobs and put information at our fingertips. Apple has revolutionized music players and cellphones and irrevocably changed the way we interact with technology. Intel has built a computer chip that is 1,000 times as powerful, 100,000 times smaller and 1 million times cheaper than that of MIT’s mainframe in 1965.
We don’t think to thank the CEO of Waste Management when trash disappears from our curbs, but 20 million households across North America rely on the company.
So where are corporate heroes? They are working quietly among us.
John Baldoni is a leadership consultant, coach and regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review online.
In December 1995, Fortune conducted an interview with two titans of American business who defined those heady times: high growth, high return and high rewards; Jack Welch of General Electric and Roberto Goizueta of Coca-Cola.
Both became CEOs in 1981 when their companies were underperforming. Welch transformed GE into a sleek juggernaut that dominated market segments from jet engines and locomotives to finance. Goizueta shook up the culture to focus more on the customer and in the process increased Coke’s market capitalization more than 30-fold.
Neither had it easy. In their Fortune interview, Welch said he was always “scared” that GE would not be nimble enough. Goizueta confided he slept like a baby: “I wake up every two hours and cry.”
This gets to the heart of leadership. Leadership, like character, is what you do when the choices are hard. When things are booming, it can be fun to grow the business, introducing new products and services, hiring new employees and reaping strong profit. Tough times mean facilities closings, layoffs and bearish earnings.
Savvy leaders prepare for tough times always. They delegate leadership to the front lines. This not only makes for greater engagement because people feel more in control of their jobs, it is great preparation for tough times like ours. So when I am asked where all the leaders have gone, I say nowhere. What has changed is the depiction of them as heroes.
Erika James is the Bank of America associate research professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School.
The outrageous acts of indiscretion and impropriety that we witnessed throughout much of this decade are inexcusable. But just as it is inappropriate to say that those CEOs were merely heroes who fell from grace, it is equally inappropriate to suggest that the men and women who are admirably leading corporations are heroes. They are not. Rather, they are humans who have a big job, and who, in order to do that job well, need and deserve the support of their leadership team, their board, their family, and a host of other stakeholders. They do not need to be put on a pedestal.
Todd Henshaw, a professor at Columbia University, is academic director of Wharton Executive Education.
I’m sitting on Omaha Beach conducting a “recon” of the sites my colleague and I will use as a classroom for the next few days with a group from Wharton MBA for Executives.
As I walked around, I thought to myself how impossible this mission must have seemed before the assault, and how many times the campaign must have been in doubt when the outcome was in question. I marveled at how wide the beach is at low tide. I walked the cliff’s edge at Pointe du Hoc and thought about the men scaling the 100 feet under machine gun fire. I saw the remains of the artificial port envisioned and built at Arromanches, an innovation that enabled the entire invasion.
“Corporate heroes?” It’s difficult for me to put those two words together. In Normandy, I saw the names of heroes inscribed in stone on monuments, but in most cases these men who changed the world are nameless, anonymous benefactors who gave Europe another shot at freedom. These are heroes.
How did these men prepare themselves for the almost impossible mission? How did they overcome the fear of death? How did their leaders help them understand what was being asked and required of them? How did they have the confidence to overcome the wide beaches, high cliffs, enemy fire, the inevitable doubt that emerges when men are thrown into chaos?
I have no idea why we would ever use the term “hero” to refer to a corporate executive.
Sir Andrew Likierman is dean of London Business School. He is also non-executive chairman of the National Audit Office and a non-executive director of Barclays Bank.
When asked about the quality he wanted most in his generals, Napoleon replied, “Luck.” On this score Tony Hayward would not have got a job with Napoleon. Of course it could be argued that he failed to rise to the PR challenge, but the roots of the blowout problem were sown long ago when safety standards were set. Michael Dell, on the other hand, has been much more the master of his own destiny. And if you name a company after yourself, you’re creating quite some expectations about your own personal performance and behavior.
The common thread that binds Hayward and Dell together is that both their companies have long been the subject of admiration and emulation. That makes their fall from grace even more galling to the rest of us. If we can’t even trust the people we are emulating, what does that say about our own judgment?
But the mistake is ours, aided and abetted by the press. Individuals are put on pedestals, giving rise to unreasonable expectations, only to be cast down when things go wrong. We need to be careful about what we expect, and learn from the mistakes of leaders as well as from their heroics.
So where have all the heroes gone? The same way as the heroes before them. Those who have the spotlight of publicity and fame come and go. We should look and learn, while reminding ourselves that uncritical admiration is probably best avoided after the age of 5.
Warren Bennis is professor of business at the University of Southern California.
Just about every decade I write a heated screed mimicking the ’60s flower song wondering where all the “leaders have gone.”
My latest attempt was in 2002 when Enron and Ken Lay were making headlines. I started with a long-forgotten Kipling poem:
But I’d shut my eyes in the sentry-box.
So I didn’t see nothin’ wrong.
The gist of my ‘02 piece can be stated simply, and its thesis is, if not identical, then remarkably similar to the BP disaster. Ken Lay’s failing was not simply his myopia or cupidity or incompetence. It was his inability to create a company culture open to reality, one that discourages workers from delivering bad news — just like Tony Hayward, who didn’t want to hear the concerns of the oil drillers marooned on that catastrophic rig, Deepwater Horizon.
How can an organization be honest with the public if it is not honest with itself? I asked. I do not believe that the CEOs of today are any worse or better than they were, let’s say, a hundred years ago. It’s just that the stakes are higher and more of us are affected by the dominance of a free-market economy.
The question remains: Will our corporate heroes or villains of the future learn from the sentries who didn’t see nothin’ wrong?
It really is time for all of us to come together and say “it will stop with me” . In this 
School is out, or almost out. It is a time of endings and beginnings. High school seniors are moving on, college grads are moving on. I recently went with my daughter to tour my granddaughter Arielle’s new elementary school. She also will be moving on after preschool graduation next week. (I was concerned I would make some slick comments if these little ones wore caps and gowns, fortunately they will be in play clothes).