We all know Mark Burnett’s tawdry contribution to American culture, The Apprentice television program, that haunted the airwaves from 2004 to 2017. This “reality” program was far from reality in the actual business world, showcasing a male-dominated, authoritarian, top-down, 1950’s management style, largely repudiated in more recent times, and firmly challenged by more modern and progressive labor law. It also took place in a faux corporation, a stand-in for a small-time mom-and-pop property management group, operating without any professional structure. Mark Burnett is a Brit, and perhaps this series was another delicacy like the heart-stopping full English breakfast sent to sicken unsuspecting Yanks. Were it only reality TV, it would merely have been a sophomoric outlier.
But sadly, it didn’t end there. The same macho management style is with us still, eight years later, inhabiting the highest offices in the land. Of course, we’ve all seen this, repeatedly, with presidential and cabinet heads firing staffers on a daily basis. Often, officials are fired by the same leader who hired them, in some cases within months. And, of course we know this has nothing to do with competence, CV, job performance or deliverables. It’s entirely about loyalty, and the result is the most unqualified roster of incompetents and conspiracy misfits and liars holding upper level administration jobs in our history. The most recent shining example is thirty-year-old Paul Ingrassia, who was a DHS liaison nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel, who withdrew his name from Senate approval proceedings because a few Republican Senators such as Thune, Scott, and Johnson said they could not vote for him due to his anti-semitic, racist, and utterly vile social media postings, including his admission he has a “Nazi streak”. So, Paul won’t be the Special Counsel, but he does get to keep his liaison job because he’s loyal to a fault.
My intention here is not so much to bash Trump. Heaven knows that role is being fulfilled. What I am reminded of and want to mention are the characteristics of effective, professional, enlightened management. I have served in executive roles for decades and have hired and terminated hundreds, the latter a few times for cause, but most often, sadly due to mergers, acquisitions, and Chapter 11.
Hiring is possibly the most critical skillset for an executive leader. Next to that is how we organize our teams for efficiency, good communication, harmony, and success. Right alongside in importance are mentoring and coaching.
When we get to the point that we need to sever the working relationship with a staffer for performance reasons, it is first and foremost an admission of our own abject failure.
We misjudged when we hired, or we were unable to make objectives clear, or we could not be the mentor that was needed. It is nothing to celebrate by strutting the dais or breast beating.
Strong leaders do not have childish egos and are comfortable leading a team versus leading the clown parade, value strong team members more skilled in their areas of expertise than themselves, and who realize that human creativity and commitment come out of harmony, not chaos. The Japanese kanji above is “wa” or “harmony”. I selected this as a logo for my consulting company years ago.
While national harmony may have ebbed, we can still remember its value and work toward recovering it. This too should hopefully pass.
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