Does A Fish Rot From The Head?
Dec 06, 2023
Have you heard what’s going on at Optus…pardon the pun…being a telecom company and all…
If you haven’t seen it, Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has recently stepped down following the disastrous outage last month that caused chaos across Australia.
They've been saying sorry non-stop for the past few weeks as 10 million Aussies, 400,000 businesses (including #kindofabigdeal companies like Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ), and pretty much everyone else who suffered from not being able to connect to the network.
Dr. Mariano Heyden from Monash Business School, says the old adage holds true for Bayer Rosmarin's resignation: heads must roll.
And hers definitely did, but should we care?
I do, but for only one reason, I want to see much better leadership, and this is another example of terrible leadership…
Did you know 1,400 chief executives have called it quits up until September this year, which is a whopping 50% increase compared to last year - why? Because this is a society that doesn’t have great leaders.
So, what makes a great leader?
A great leader inspires people, not through force or incentives, but with an idea to do good in the world, to make a difference, one that we all want to get behind.
The word “Leader” is given to almost anyone who has people working for them, but that’s not leadership, that’s management - and most people aren’t good managers (let alone leaders), honestly.
What I care about is people who develop themselves into great leaders.
Imagine if the next CEO said something like this:
“I will make it my personal mission to solve todays great communication challenges, I will stop millions of people struggling to get reliable internet, I will build robust structures to prevent outages like this ever occurring, and I will develop Optus into a company we can all be proud of”
And imagine if they put a plan in place to do it?
The problem is, most managers aren’t taught to be great leaders, it’s why most people don’t love their jobs, because their managers aren’t leaders.
So, if you’re thinking of being a leader, don’t mistake leadership for management, because the cost to your career and reputation is huge.