A new form of leadership, “Desperate leadership” has been born.

Chrysler’s new chief executive believes former military personnel make the best managers (The Telegraph, UK, 7th August) . Not only the new CEO is an ex-marine himself but thinks that ex-soldiers are the best possible employees. The Telegraph’s headline was ‘Yes sir, that’s affirmative sir” Robert Nardelli has been brought in by the private equity firm Cerberus. Well, I suppose he knows a thing or two about command and control and probably ‘point of destiny’. In my book I distinguish between point-of-destiny leaders and journey-leaders. In the extreme, the former know exactly where to go, which, I did confess in the book, scares me pretty much. Ex-marines and ex-soldiers can certainly be good leaders ( and pretty much anything else) but what the private equity plus ex marine CEO seem to be looking for is a chain of command, which, I assume matches that ‘exact vision’ of where to go. I think that it sounds pretty desperate. But, hey, best of luck. Maybe there is a stream of possibilities here. What about ex-bishops? Just joking.

The leadership supermarket shelves

Let me share a few paragraphs from the book:

“This business of ‘leadership’ seems and feels both old and new, easy and difficult, ‘big thing’ and trivialized at the airport bookstore. We are trying to capture a fascinating phenomenon, and, frankly, any help, ‘map’, study and framework is welcome. But if you are looking for the definitive method and the final unquestionable ten-laws-of, you have a problem. Just think for a second. We are trying to understand something that has been attributed to Mother Theresa, Sir Richard Branson, Hitler, Bill Gates, Churchill, Gandhi, Jack Welch, Khmer Rouge’s Pol Pot, Tony Blair and Jonny Garcia. Yes, all of them.”

“We are told that leaders have integrity, enthusiasm, resilience, fairness, humility, warmth and confidence, to quote a well-respected ‘study’. So, if you are an integral, warm, resilient, humble, fair and confident chap, does that make you a leader? Or do leaders share those attributes with non-leaders? And if so, what’s all the fuss about the (‘research’) list?”

Leadership categorisation will continue for a long time, whether from the value side or the behavioural side. The conversation matters.