Leaders of the past almost always seem more effective than those of today. It’s a perceptual bias: We long for what we don’t have, and mythologize what we used to have. But even taking this bias into consideration, many of today’s leaders don’t seem to measure up to our expectations.According to a survey conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School last year, 68% of Americans believe that there is a “leadership crisis” in the country; and leaders in only four out of thirteen sectors inspire above average confidence (the military, the Supreme Court, non-profits, and medical institutions). Leaders of the news media, Congress, and Wall Street receive the lowest scores.
My parents used to tell me that the leaders of their day not only inspired confidence, but respect and reverence as well. They talked about Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower, Gandhi, and others of that generation as larger than life figures. Growing up, I had the same impressions of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and others. Sure they had their flaws, but they were courageous and decisive, and could communicate in ways that made it clear what they stood for.
But today’s public figures don’t seem to inspire the same confidence. According to Gallup figures, only 43% of Americans think that President Obama is doing a good job (up from a low of 38%); and only 15% have a favorable view of Congress. Even in the corporate sector, confidence in leaders may be waning (at least from their boards): According to a study by the search firm Crist Kolder Associates, CEO turnover in Fortune 500 and S&P 500 firms this year is running at 13%, up from 10% last year.
The irony is it’s likely that more money has been spent on leadership development in the last two decades — in both the public and private sectors — than was probably spent in the previous ten decades combined (admittedly I’m guessing here; no figures seem to be available). So why are we not turning out better leaders across the board? Let me suggest two possibilities — and perhaps readers will add others:
First, the velocity and volume of issues that leaders are confronted with today has increased substantially. This doesn’t mean that the previous generations of leaders had it easy; rather they had more time between decisions than leaders have today. Now, with the advent of instantaneous communication across the globe, leaders have very little time to think. Most of the senior executives that I’ve worked with, in both the public and private sectors, are inundated with information and overwhelmed with meetings. They move from one issue to the next with frequent interruptions as new developments occur. Relaxed time to think, reflect, and plan is limited and fragmented. But leaders who don’t find ways to carve out that quality time reduce their effectiveness.
A second reason for the diminished confidence might be that many of today’s leaders are overly concerned with the reactions of their stakeholders. This may sound odd, since a key function of leadership is to tune in to the needs of the people they are leading. Listening, however, only goes so far, particularly when the many voices do not agree. At some point leaders need to declare their intentions, even if not everyone will be happy. For this reason today’s leaders often hesitate to do what they think is right. Instead politicians seem to base their policies on polling trends, while corporate leaders worry about the reactions of analysts and traders. In contrast, respected leaders drive towards a longer-term vision and find ways to handle the speed bumps along the way.
Of course comparing leaders from different generations has no right answer — just like the arguments about who would win an athletic contest between teams from different eras. But if reflecting on the question helps us find ways of increasing leadership effectiveness today, maybe it’s worth some debate.
What are your thoughts? Are the leaders of today less (or more) effective than the leaders of the past?