Leadership

Andrew Layman:  PCB CEO

I have written previously about our Chamber’s Leadership Forum and this week I do so again having been stimulated by Professor Martin Prozesky’s facilitation of the topic “Public virtue, private vice.”   What is the relationship between a leader’s public persona and his or her private life?   Does it matter if there is a difference at all?

On 16th May, Reuters reported as follows:  “A bleak day for English football ended with 2018 World Cup bid badly damaged, the FA in chaos and chairman David Triesman forced to resign after a newspaper sting in which he is taped claiming a Spanish bribery conspiracy.”   He, a highly respected leader of the Football Association, had speculated in a private cell phone conversation that two European countries were rumoured to be conspiring to bribe referees in order to secure the Soccer World Cup and sink the British bid.    It appears that it was Lord Triesman’s own conscience that “forced” him to take this step rather than pressure from the Association itself.   In light of the consequences of his conversation having been made public, his position had become untenable and he took what many would regard as the honourable step.    By contrast, there have been many others, across the world, who have not only avoided falling on their swords, but have lied to the public or simply ridden out the public storm which, inevitably, abates when the media lose interest.   One thinks of the former President of Athletics South Africa who may yet re-appear in some position of leadership.    The unlucky Lord Triesman’s sin was to express a view in a conversation which he thought was private and confidential.   Other leaders, of even higher profile, have committed much more serious breaches of public expectation and survived.   President Clinton was one of these.    Not only did he offend the public face of WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) moral rectitude, but he lied to the nation.   Yet he survived the full term of presidency and left the office a popular figure.  Perhaps he was lucky in this regard to have been succeeded by George W Bush whose offences were neither illegal nor immoral.    But people generally like a smart leader with common sense.   Or do they?  Ronald Reagan was no intellectual giant and we have some pygmies in this country. 

Here, there is a tendency for hypocrisy.   Some people who have disgraced themselves in high positions have ended up in even more elevated ones.   In fact, I wonder whether there is such a thing as disgrace any longer.    Loyalists tend to be protected, and, sometimes, even nurtured into future positions.    Perhaps disgrace exists only when someone has fallen foul of the political leaders who wish to get rid of him.    It constitutes a good excuse, rather than a reason.   

That the British press should have mounted a moral campaign against our President is understandable since it is part of the British culture to publicly espouse Victorian values, which, by the way, arrested a singularly promiscuous and lascivious national order which characterised the country before Victoria ascended the throne.   A lot of people in this country criticised President Zuma as well because they either lost respect in view of his extra-marital proclivities or his polygamy or both.   They also recognised that the country’s international image is at stake.  

The question is: do these private failings (they are only failings in the minds of some) affect a leader’s qualities of leadership or his or her effectiveness?   (I have used the feminine pronoun conscious of the fact that if a woman president were found to have committed the same ‘sins’ as either Zuma or Clinton, the chances of survival in office would be drastically reduced.)    Clinton’s presidency has been judged well by history; Zuma’s is work in progress.    But, if a leader is not faithful in his private life, can he be trusted to be faithful in his public one?   Is it possible for a person to have integrity only some of the time?    Do we value authenticity in people, our leaders particularly, or are we essentially tolerant and forgiving, ultimately, perhaps, not caring very much?   

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