We are living in a very unsettling time in which bad things seem to be happening everywhere all at once. Where we were once complacent and happy to overconsume, now we are worried and uncertain about the future. We watch as the people chosen to lead our businesses and our government keep making wrong decisions that lead to disastrous results that end up having a negative effect on all of us.
We need leaders who have the courage and the intellect to make the right decisions. This is a difficult combination to find, particularly when there are so many forces working to discourage our leaders from making the right decisions.
These days, achieving a position of leadership has little to do with being able to make the right decisions. It has more to do with defeating rivals by any means necessary, making alliances with influential people who always want favors, and exhibiting blind allegiance to those you answer to.
Our reliance on this type of leader has done much damage already, and it continues to weaken our country and our society by encouraging the wrong decisions to be made.
I offer two cases in point.
Having worked most of my career for large corporations, I have seen firsthand how the focus on profitability can lead to disastrous outcomes.
It comes as no surprise to me that Boeing began to make defective airplanes once it stopped following the recommendations of its engineers and technical personnel and made profitability its overriding concern. Regardless of the statements that Boeing management makes about improving its quality programs and procedures to ensure that doors don’t blow off, tires don’t fall off, and computer software can’t cause planes to fall from the sky – there will continue to be an overriding focus on bottom-line profit due to its corporate culture.
It remains to be seen if Boeing is willing to take the necessary steps required to return to its origins as an innovative and technically sound company.
It comes as no surprise to me either that various organizations are vulnerable to cyberattacks, ransomware attacks, disruptions of service, and the installation of dormant malware allowing remote access into databases and system controls. The type of specialized protective security measures required may be beyond the appreciation, technical capability, and financial resources of many organizations to implement. This does not change the fact that protection from electronic security breaches and intellectual theft has to be an overriding focus of all organizations if our society is to be protected from those who actively wish us harm.
It remains to be seen if organization leaders are prepared to be proactive and do what needs to be done in the face of reduced profits and organizational disruption.
My fear is that there is no incentive for organizations to act prudently when profit is ultimately the only valued measure of performance. It is likely that nothing substantive will be done to avoid disaster, and then when it happens fingers will be pointed and scapegoats will be found, but the damage will have been done.
In much the same way, government policies that focus on ideology and political expediency instead of intelligent evaluation will lead to disastrous outcomes more often than not. Every administration has its examples of ideological and politically expedient policies gone wrong.
For me, the most glaring example from the previous Trump administration was the reduction in taxes given to the wealthiest individuals and large corporations. Neither group was in desperate financial straits, neither group used their tax savings to improve their American business portfolios, and trillions of dollars were needlessly added to this country’s national debt.
Even worse, the current Biden administration seems to be based entirely on ideological and politically expedient policies, taking this style of governance to an unprecedented extreme.
From the unnecessary abandonment of a strategic military base in Afghanistan, to the refusal to first acknowledge and then address this country’s southern border migrant crisis, to the mad rush to eliminate fossil fuel energy sources in favor of an all-electric society when the electric energy grid does not have the capacity to support such a change – there appears to be little that this administration does that is based upon thoughtful evaluation and common sense.
We like to think that we live in a sophisticated and advanced society. But what is happening now is nothing more than a retelling of a story that has existed long before Shakespeare and the Greeks, a story told across cultures as varied as those of the Egyptian pharaohs and the Chinese dynasties. The story of the eternal quest for money and power, achieved through the sacrifices of the people.
Tragically, in this world of egotistical, selfish, and short-sighted leaders, the prudent and the intelligent need not apply.