November 23, 2009

Comments on Stephen Gill’s Recent Post

Stephen Gill of the “Performance Improvement Blog” wrote a great blog piece yesterday on the economic crisis and the flawed bank and financial institution leadership which helped create it.  He also made reference to 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis, and I wanted to be sure to highlight his fine analysis here.  Gill very zeroes in on two themes that run throughout the book (about which I am in complete agreement): 

“One is the notion that truly high performing leaders take responsibility in a crisis. They own the organization’s failures, learn from those  mistakes, are transparent about this, and apply that learning to the next crisis. The other theme is that high performing leaders keep an ethical compass pointed at their personal “True North.” 

And he concludes with what I think is a very concise and accurate summation of our current situation:

“It’s easy to fix blame for the failure of banks on regulators who face a great deal of resistance when they try to enforce rules and regulations. The more fundamental problem is with the failed leadership of banks.” 

Be sure to check out this post in its entirety – a good read for today.