Any leader can lead when the champagne is flowing. When the company is flourishing. When the business is the toast of Wall Street and the darling of the shareholders. When a glowing halo illuminates the executive suite.

Lay and Skilling were superb at that. Wow, could they bask in the limelight. Like Nicholson on Oscar night. But what happened when “you know what” hit the fan? When the adoring headlines turned to subpoenas? When employees lost their jobs and all of their wealth?

Simple: in a surreal song and dance, they simply declared, in so many words, we weren’t the leaders after all. Just innocent bystanders watching a car wreck they had nothing to do with.

Well, that’s like a platoon commander running for the hills as soon as his men come under fire. “Hey, I had no idea this was war!”

Yes, the Lay and Skilling case has to do with the rule of law. But equally, it is about management. Lousy, gutless management that sucks so badly it smells like dead fish. Bye guys!

Mark Stevens

CEO

This entry was posted on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 9:56 am and is filed under Celebrity Branding, Management, Million $$ Marketing Mistakes, Unconventional Thinking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.