One former RBS employee said the previous ceo had 'created a culture of fear.' New ceo Stephen Hester has a different and clear vision for the bank: "I have set out to drive very clearly a spirit of openness, transparency, disclosure, of blunt-speaking, thoughtfulness, and empowerment.."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8218043.stm
Is it any wonder that the RBS (pre October 2008) has become a seminal case study in poor leadership?
Fear is not a motivating factor. You might be able to get a little bit more out of someone in the short term, but you will completely erode your business and your culture in the long term. You’re going to lose all your good people. You’re not going to have people tell you the truth, and it becomes the tradition.
Command and control leadership is not culturally relevant anymore. Even if you look at generations who are coming up, the idea that you need somebody to tell you what to do and not think for yourself — that’s not today's culture. With that sort of manager or ceo, you’re not going to keep intelligent, inspired talent, because they want some form of entrepreneurial environment to be able to exercise their talent. Leaders need to challenge colleagues to be able to do that, not tell them to do something 'my way', especially when they might be able to do it better! Also, all organisations are significantly diverse today. Command-and-control isn’t the kind of corporate culture people want to be in anymore.
So Whatever Happened to Command-and-Control Leadership?
