Leadership Lipservice

Maybe the eye rolling I'm experiencing and the negative tone of my blogs is related to the economic conditions taking place in our country. I'm not so sure that is it, although I wouldn't want to be the person who later down the road tries to convince my generation (gen y) to: invest in housing, the stock market or sock money away for retirement. I think what is really eating me is the lack of leadership to do anything about it. It isn't surprising look at how our leaders have dealt with the environment, foreign policy and education. Now that the bailout bill has failed they just go back and blame the other party. Who saw that coming?

The problem is short term thinking and political maneuvering might produce short term wins but in the end it leaves things worse off than ever before. This economic crisis is proof that long term strategy and leadership do matter and we've not been getting it.

Right when this occurs to me I sink a little lower as I'm reminded that it isn't just political leadership that stinks when I read my Workforce Management enewsletter which points out:

"Around the world, the verdict of employees is unanimous: Leadership stinks. A global study by Development Dimensions International finds that confidence in corporate leaders has plummeted to a 10-year low. Only 35 percent of human resources professionals express “high confidence” in their top decision makers...Leaders themselves are unhappy. Only half say they receive development opportunities that enable them to lead with confidence. Specifically, those in leadership roles criticize top executives for failing to communicate their expectations. The need for leadership training is growing more acute as companies expand globally. About 12 percent of all leaders have multinational responsibilities, but nearly 40 percent “consider their development for this role (to be) poor or fair.”"

So basically the quote ends by saying not only are our leaders bad now, we're not even preparing future bad leaders.