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On Leadership
By Michael Alan Hamlin
October 2003
This seems like a good time to do
some thinking on leadership. There is the obvious - and inevitable
- political leadership conundrum leading up to the elections, for
one, with the added attraction of serial coup jitters and scandals
sprawl - as opposed to suburban sprawl. Like suburban sprawl, scandals
sprawl is never ending, ugly, and nobody seems to be able to do
anything about it.
Then there is that gaggle of rudderless corporations
howling for government protection of their manufacturing and service
companies from evil foreign competitors. They - the leaders of those
corporations - could learn a thing or two about leadership, it seems
to me, so that they might muster the organizational synergy and
creativity to beat the foreigners down on their own instead of making
consumers pay the price of their survival in the form of higher
priced but lower quality goods and services.
I could go on, but I'm not saying anything you don't
already know. The bottom line is that when it comes to leadership,
we're in a mess. But what will it take to change that? Assuming
that truly well-intentioned leaders were in plentiful supply, it
might be helpful to mimic the successes of world-class leaders that
left their countries, companies, and whatever else they led in better
shape than they found them.
One of those leaders currently in vogue is Rudolph
W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, federal prosecutor,
and likely future US presidential aspirant. I recently picked up
his book, Leadership, at the Singapore airport. Now, I've felt pretty
ambivalent about Giuliani for many years, mainly because I thought
he went after former junk bond king and convicted felon Michael
Milken for mostly political gain, rather than to protect investors.
Giuliani investigated and indicted Milken, although he wasn't convicted
until after Giuliani had left office.
Ironically, Milken eventually became a source of inspiration
and guidance for Giuliani. That catalyst was prostate cancer. When
Milken was diagnosed with this hideous disease, he fought it ferociously,
in Giuliani's words, and used a significant portion of his wealth
to found CaP CURE, "the largest private funder in the US of
prostate-cancer research. Milken called Giuliani when he learned
of the then-mayor's own diagnosis. "When we met, my immediate
impression was that he was dealing with his cancer the way he dealt
with making billions of dollars for himself and his clients,"
Giuliani writes, "zealously, and totally focused."
Giuliani sites his relationship with Milken as an example
of how effective leaders educate themselves. Milken's success is
attributable to many factors, but chief among them is his attention
to detail and a comprehensive understanding of issues, whether securities
or disease. Giuliani is silent on another attribute that both men
shared, it seems - the strength of character to put aside old animosities
for more important things. And the animosities were certainly great
among these two.
Leadership has many practical lessons, which
are validated by Giuliani's record as mayor long before the tragedy
of September 11, 2001. Violent crime fell dramatically, at one point
six times faster than the falling national average, making New York
City the safest large city in the US. It also became one of the
cleanest, including the near elimination of the city's once-famous
graffiti-decorated core. Graffiti arrests increased from 475 in
1995 to 1,485 in 2001, sending a strong message to would-be modern
folk artists.
Graffiti might not seem much of an issue to many, but
according to Giuliani, you'd be wrong to share that view. In fact,
he believes that it's attention to the little things like graffiti
that prevents bigger bad things from happening. "Sweat the
small stuff is the essence of the Broken Windows Theory that I embraced
to fight crime," Giuliani explains. "The theory holds
that a seemingly minor matter like broken windows in abandoned buildings
leads directly to a more serious deterioration of neighborhoods.
"Someone who wouldn't normally throw a rock at
an intact building is less reluctant to break a second window in
a building that already has one broken. And someone emboldened by
all the second broken windows may do even worse damage if he senses
that no one is around to prevent lawlessness." Not paying attention
makes others - including associates and employees - wonder what
else we're not paying attention to in our businesses, too.
There are a couple of other leadership attributes that
stand out, and that are reasonably easy to implement in any organization.
For instance, Giuliani began every morning as mayor with a brief
staff meeting for at least three reasons. First, a quick morning
meeting accelerated decision making so that relatively minor issues
were quickly dealt with before they festered into more complex problems.
Second, the morning meeting helped set priorities and
got everyone on the same page. Giuliani observes that in previous
administrations, deputy mayors and other senior officials frequently
contradicted each other in their public remarks. That didn't happen
during his two terms, which created the impression of a cohesive
government that knew what it was doing. Third, everyday meetings
provided a powerful mechanism for follow up and creating a get-things-done
culture.
Indeed, accountability is also a fixture of Giuliani's
success. To instill a sense of accountability among city government
officials, Giuliani developed a system he called Compstat. Today
it would be called an enterprise system that tracks transactions
- or in this case, crimes - in real time and provides tools for
gathering and analyzing market intelligence. Giuliani first implemented
Compstat in the Police Department, making each borough - essentially
really big barangays - commander accountable on a daily basis. Those
that couldn't handle the heat left; those that could helped recreate
New York City.
Doing all the things a leader like Giuliani does is a pain. But
I guess that's the point. Like everything else in life, strong leadership
comes with a price. Now, I wonder who's willing to pay that price?
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001). Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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