“The CEO shown the door” … “Mr. ABC sacks the CEO” … We saw many such headlines in last week’s business newspapers. When I was reading these news items, several thoughts went through my mind – I was reacting to the news as an individual and also as a HR professional. What I am writing here is NOT specifically about last week’s story – but only about thoughts triggered by it.
First things first – I fully believe in importance of ‘a culture driven by strong performance’. I believe that the owners / board members of an organization have a responsibility to ensure that the organization is led by capable leaders, who can deliver superior stakeholder value. It is the owner’s / board’s prerogative to reprimand the leaders – even change them if need be. All of us know that in today’s ( to use the most clichéd but true phrase) ‘hypercompetitive, ever-changing, interconnected and globalized’ business world it is extremely challenging for any business head or function head to deliver outstanding performance year after year. Quite often, factors completely outside the organization’s control significantly influence the business performance. This is not to say that changes in business leadership should not be considered if the business or function has underperformed – but the only point I am making is that adequate balance and respect should be shown while affecting such changes.
When I read those headlines – my first thoughts were with such well regarded leaders ‘who are asked to step down’. More often than not, such leaders would have typically devoted a large part of their lives (and life energies) to the organization. They would typically have made significant and long lasting contributions, influenced the organization’s direction and culture, built strong teams and groomed a set of leaders. Of course they would have seen their share of failures and mistakes – but there usually won’t be any doubt about their intentions and dedication towards the organization. I can’t even imagine how one (and one’s family and well wishers) would feel to read such disrespectful headline as the ‘one line’ public conclusion about one’s career spanning a few decades. (Sensational and distorted headlines make the matters worse)
This made me think about the ‘Golden Rule’. So much has been written about leadership, people management capabilities, winning the heart and soul of employees. Few million hours and dollars must be getting spent on discussing, debating and training people on these matters every year. I have often felt that if organizations and managers try and follow the ‘Golden Rule’, i.e. ‘TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WANT TO BE TREATED’ – majority of people issues will disappear and quality of people management will improve dramatically. (The ‘Golden Rule’ is a major subject in Philosophy and Religious Studies http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/goldrule.htm. I strongly believe that this single principle, with necessary caveats, has very high significance for HR as well as people management – but that’s a subject of another post)
So what can the organization do when it needs to let go of the senior leaders, who have made stellar contributions in the past but have not performed well in their current roles. Situation also could be such that the incumbent leader may have actually performed at satisfactory level – but the organization has now found a potential game changer, to whom it wishes to hand over the reins. I think in such transitions the organization needs to ensure that the existing incumbents are treated with appropriate sensitivity, respect and their contributions are duly acknowledged. This should be done in a manner clearly visible to employees, associates as well as public at large. In terms of specific actions, it could mean – the senior most leader ( say the Chairman ) personally addressing the entire management team in presence of the outgoing leaders, a very clearly worded press release, efforts to ensure that media coverage is not disrespectful and so on. Not only is this the ‘right thing to do’ – but it also has a tremendous impact on the morale and commitment of the other employees. With appropriate communication, the employees will largely accept and respect the management decision to bring in a change in leadership. But they will never be at peace if they see that the organization has been ungrateful and disrespectful to a well respected, long tenured leader. If this happens, employees will get extremely cynical and they will lose faith about fairness of the organization. Even good performers will start thinking – ‘this may happen to me tomorrow’. No organization that is interested in winning the heart and soul of the employees can afford this situation – and should keep this mind when dealing with separations.I know of an incident where a set of middle to senior managers left the organization because they felt that their leader was treated in an unfair manner.
What do we learn from such incidents, at a personal level? While we continue to put our hearts and souls in our jobs and careers, we must not lose the perspective that there is more to life than the job. We must tell our families and friends that while our career is a significant part of our life, it is not equal to (or more than) our life. This also tells us that we can never rest on our past laurels or get too comfortable in same role or organization. We must constantly invest in ourselves, ensure that we are growing in capabilities and the range of roles and industries we can work is ever expanding. We must also focus on achieving financial security. While work certainly should be a significant source of fulfillment; we must not forget to cultivate and invest in those hobbies, interests that provide us unadulterated joy. It’s all about balancing two contradictory forces simultaneously – on one side taking lot of efforts to build a successful career and on the other trying to minimize our vulnerability to vagaries of organizational changes.
