“Why should the citizens of this world keep companies around whose sole purpose is the enrichment of a few people?” Paul Polman, the highly successful and far-sighted departing CEO of Unilever. “Society demands that companies “serve a social purpose” Larry Fink, CEO BlackRock, world largest asset manager “In the eyes […]
EMPATHY: “If I’d only known how being nice to customers was going to work so well, I’d have started many years ago.” Michael O’Leary CEO of Ryanair, 2016 Sadly, his new awareness didn’t lead to sensitive handling of the chaos a year later caused by his airline’s last minute cancellations. […]
Revelations about the PR firm Bell Pottinger, again raise the issue of what exactly is an ethical business leader? Reports suggest this firm earned £100,000 a month in fees, running a secret campaign to stir up racial tension on behalf of its billionaire clients. Now the firm’s own future is […]
The failure of BA’s chief executive Alex Cruz to avoid toxic tone from the top will resonate for months, perhaps years. True the airline’s share price has not died a death. Toxic tone from the top can take months, even years to undermine a brand. No amount of high tech […]
In some ways it was a classic case of angels versus the bad guys. On one side was Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever—long admired as the closest you get to being an ethical leader while running a huge multi-national. On the other side, a well-resourced group of ruthless deal makers, […]
The US election has been one way answering what sort of leader some people want. Another is the spell-binding Abel Gance silent movie Napoleon. Once again this extraordinary achievement packed out a major London venue in November 2016. It keeps happening. Whenever this marvel of cinema rears its head, audiences […]
The fall of John Stumpf, long serving CEO of Wells Fargo makes good headlines. Some 5,000 or so employees fired for abusing the trust of the banks’ customers sounds even better. It seems to show a management on the war path. Is this the top team riding to the rescue […]
Most companies claim to have important values. In the best ones these drive the organisation, guiding both direction and culture. Yet as Enron demonstrated, boasting about values is easy. Making them come alive, and sustaining them is far harder. One leading global communication company for example, call its values “Guiding […]