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Bad leaders: cures and preventions
As leaders of institutions we know that what we say will be heard as the embodiment of our institutions. Our words are never incidental. They always contribute to the larger narrative that tells our institution's story ... (James Cuno, President of the Art Institute of Chicago and former Director of the Harvard University Art Museums)
The public language of CEOs, which we refer to as CEO-speak[1] , is subject to intense scrutiny by stakeholders with a wide variety of interests. The speeches of CEOs, their letter to stockholders in the corporate annual report, and their use of the Internet and other communications media, provide important insights to company policy, strategy, commitment, attitudes, and accountability. As such, the public discourse prepared by and for them should be subjected to close and careful assessment by the corporate managers responsible for developing and communicating strategy and by those advising the CEO.
Our research suggests that the corporate leadership team should be acutely conscious of some usually overlooked subtleties of CEO-speak. Unless the organization's top management plays a significant role in monitoring, weighing, and offering commentary on the style of the language and content of what CEOs say, stakeholder communications can produce a distorted or unintentionally revealing picture of what is going on in an organization.
By closely examining CEO-speak, a sophisticated observer gains a unique view of an organization's leadership. For example, a careful reader will ask, "Whose voice do we hear when we listen to CEO-speak?" Does it sound like the drone of a committee of accountants who are more comfortable with numbers than with "the vision thing?" Or can the inimitable voice of an individual be heard in the message of CEO-speak?
If the leader's voice is apparent, what does it sound like? Is the language appropriate to the corporate situation? Is it the voice of a genuine leader or is it the pronouncement of an egoist? On the spectrum of power, some CEOs are autocrats insulated from the daily experience of the average person. At the other extreme, some CEOs must respond almost daily to 'real-world' events and public reaction over which they have little control. Whether they operate imperially or tread cautiously on a daily communications tightrope, their CEO-speak...