Where have all the leaders gone?

It might be easy to become despondent if you looked seriously at the leadership in play around the world, and here in Australia today . Let's look at a few examples.

The Corporate world:

Colgate-Palmolive, Cussons and Woolworths have been charged by the ACCC with deliberately deceiving the public, and profiting accordingly by reducing the volume in some of their laundry powder products, and not passing on the savings to the public. The scheme was called "Project Mastermind" in an internal Cussons email. $18m in fines have been levied, however one report said that the Colgate-Palmolive had profited by over $146m.

The Sporting world:

Parramatta Rugby League Club have been fined over $5550,000 and suffered a loss of 12 competition points as a result of being proven to have systematically cheated the salary cap for over 5 years. There have been a veritable gallery of directors at the Club over this time, none of whom appear to have an appetite for taking any responsibility for the situation.

The Political world:

At home, the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull has spectacularly wasted on overwhelming advantage against the underwhelming Bill Shorten by failing to, well, failing to lead. From the decisive leader who saved the Party and the country from Tony Abbott, Turnbull has vacillated, flip flopped and failed to engage either the rogues in his party or the otherwise limp Opposition, to the point where he will be taking the Government into a knife edge election, when he should be planning his new, post July cabinet. The public saw him, embraced him, was excited by him, and has waited for Turnbull to do something. They're still waiting. Talk about an opportunity lost.

In the United States, a reality television mogul has seized the Republican nomination for the Presidency of the country; six months ago even Republicans regarded Donald Trump as a joke. No one is laughing any more. Whatever positives Hillary Clinton has, she also carries considerable baggage, as evidenced by her inability thus far to shake of the determined, but unlikely challenge of the Socialist Bernie Sanders. The polls are suggesting Clinton should win against Trump, but like it or not, Trump's motivational and aspirational cry of, "Make America great again" is resonating across the country. Hillary has some serious work to do to take the White House.

The point is......

Where are those leadership qualities we hear about, such as integrity, honesty, decisiveness and consistency, to name a few? There appears to be a serious lack of these characteristics in some very high places. The Colgate, Cussons, Woolworths rort appears to have been a deliberate, planned strategy to lie to the public and increase profits accordingly. The Parramatta directors also planned the salary cap cheating; it went on for five years. These (men) had been elected to positions of responsibility by footy club members who just wanted to see their beloved club be successful. Their actions have heaped pain on the Club, the code, and the greater sporting community in the process.

Why doesn't Malcolm Turnbull act, why doesn't he actually DO something? Leaders DO, leaders act, leaders make things happen. As John C Maxwell says, "A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way". If the Prime Minister is looking for guidance, he need look no further than at the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, who has led actively since taking the job, and has initiated and actually done several significant things for the State. He is a "doer", and is clearly getting on with the job. Whatever faults he might have (can't see too many right now!) he is decisive, and is communicating effectively. Everyone doesn't love everything he does (skyrail, eg), but everyone knows that he is a man of his word, and is getting on with the job he was elected to do. That would be leading.

Leaders, when you go to Amazon.com, there are 219,677 titles that come up when you search on "Books, Leadership". If only 1% are any good, there are probably 10 times more excellent books on leadership than most people can reasonably read. Do yourselves, your followers, and your businesses a favour and go and find a few of them.

And then DO something.