Module PGBM141

Professional Management and

Leadership
Week 3.

Leaders who do not listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have
nothing to say

Andy Stanley

Dr Linda Anne Barkas

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 Introduction

Welcome to the module

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 Order of the Lecture

1. Rec-cap and review of week 2

2. Vision
3. Strategy
4. Engagement
5. Workshop activity
6. Summary of skill building weeks 1-3

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 Visionary Leadership

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 Vision – the essence of
leadership?
Call it “vision,” or “mission,” but it all boils down to one thing:
First and foremost, people look to leaders for direction. Only
by knowing their organization’s direction can people apply
themselves to achieve their goals. It needn’t be formally
stated; the leader’s actions and decisions convey the direction
to the company. The direction needs to pervade every decision
and conversation within the company, and it’s the leader who
makes that happen. Providing direction for others is a key to
creating a leadership relationship.
https://www.steverrobbins.com/articles/the-essence-of-
leadership/

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 What is the ‘vision’?

• A mental model
• Future state
• A guiding philosophy
• A map
• A challenge

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 Vision

Vision is where a company is going-you’d think it was

easy……

Essence of leadership is vision – Theodore Hesburgh

former president of Notre Dane University in USA:

“Danger of the pursuit of policy contrary to self-

interest”

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 Governments/company
policies
History shows us Humans make a poorer performance
– it seems – in government than almost any other
human activity
Puzzles of human decisions over the centuries
Reason, judgement and common sense – left behind

Why did Trojan rulers drag that suspicious looking

wooden horse inside their walls – every sense suspect a
Greek trick?

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 March of Folly….
Questions from Pullitzer prize winner
Barbara W.Tuckman:-
Why did….
George III insist on coercing rather than
conciliating the American colonies- despite repeated
advise from counsellors that the harm done was
greater than any possible gain?

Why did…

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 Why…..

Why did…

Charles X11, Napoleon, Hitler invade Russia despite the

disasters incurred by each predecessor…

Why do …

oil-importing nations engage in rivalry for available supply

when a united front would gain control of situation

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 Why did….

Why did

British trade unions (1970s-1980s) drag own country in

paralysis – under impression separate from the whole?

American business (and other countries too) – insist on

‘growth’ when it is using up three basics of life on our
plant – land, water and unpolluted air

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 Modern day ….

Elizabeth Holmes - Theranos

Task - handout

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 Mis-government –business
and politics-4 kinds
1. Tyranny or oppression
2. Excessive ambition (Germany’s twice attempted
rule of Europe; Japan’s bid for empire of Asia)
3. Incompetence or decadence
4. Folly or perversity.

Self-interest is whatever conduces to the welfare of the

body being governed, folly is a policy that in these
terms in counter-productive (Tuchman, 1984)

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 To qualify for a folly –policy
adopted 3 criteria
1. Must have been perceived as counter-productive in
its own time (not just by hindsight)

2. A feasible alternative must have been available

3. To remove the problem from a personality –means

policy should be that of a group

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 So where does vision prevent folly of
misgovernment in business or
government?

If pursing disadvantage after disadvantage has become

obvious then rejection of reason is the prime
characteristic of folly

Refusal to draw inference from negative signs, - under

rubric ‘wooden-headedness’

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 George Orwell’s novel 1984, the
author used the word ‘crimestop’…

‘Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short,

as though by instinct, at the threshold of any
dangerous thought. It includes the power of not
grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical
errors, of misunderstanding the simplest
arguments…

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….and of being bored and repelled by any train
of thought which is capable of leading in a
heretical direction. Crimestop, in short means
protective stupidity.’

Extract quoted from Tuchman (1984:481)

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 Activity 1

• Seeing

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 References
Allem, R. 91995) On a clear day you can have a vision. Leadership & Organization Development Journal , 16, 39-45.

Argyris, C. (1990) Overcoming Organisational Defences. New York: Prentice Hall.

Gill, R. (2011) Theory and Practice of Leadership. London: Sage.

Kotter, J.P. (1990) A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs from Management. New York: Free Press;

Senge, P. M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline. The Art & Practice of the Learning Organisation. London: Random House.

Stewart, R. (1997) The Reality of Management (3d. Ed.)Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Tuchman, B. W. (1984) The March of Folly From Troy to Vietnam. London: Abacus

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