Comments on: Leadership means confronting reality

By: acm

acm — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:10:00 +0000

obligatory note: not everybody who got into too much house did so “knowing that they couldn’t afford” them. for decades, people have trusted banks to look at their finances and tell them how much house they should be shopping for (which is why the mortgage application often precedes the house looking) — the banks totally took advantage of that trust (i.e., ceased to do their job)…

By: Raymond E. Foster

Raymond E. Foster — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:16:56 +0000

I heard a very interesting interview on NPR – what I gleened from that, as well as this post, is that leadership failed because two parts of the human condition got in the way – fear and greed. Fear of being the one who “tells” and greed for people know it is wrong and going along to get theirs. I certainly agree that the people at the top are responsible; but, so are the people who bought houses they knew they couldn’t afford, the people who packaged and sold the mortgages and me – for watching those ads about “no money down” mortgages and thinking it was a “lost leader ad” – because they couldn’t really be doing that.

By: Aleksandar M. Velkoski

Aleksandar M. Velkoski — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:53:27 +0000

Leadership is a process that includes a leader, a follower, and a situation. Each element of the leadership process brings something unique to the table. In the case of the financial crisis, the entire leadership process was flawed (as you seem to allude to). There was no vision or values, there was a lack of followership as a result, and, because there was no clear leader, there was no understanding of the situation. A complete and gross disregard of the leadership process. When this happens, there is a clear failure of leadership. When leadership fails, well, I think we all understand the consequences.

By: Becky

Becky — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:57:04 +0000

I agree with you in your definition of what a good leader is. I also believe that being a leader means building customer loyalty- something I learned in Ken Lizotte's latest book, "The Expert's Edge." With all of the scandal and dishonesty that has gone on over the past couple of months, Wall Street has lost my loyalty and trust- I will be very hesitant to ever invest again.