On the Meaning and Value of Leadership: Formulating a Social Reality as a Vision

I submit that leadership is the formation of a vision and persuading other people to adopt it. From this standpoint, leadership is distinct from management—the latter taking the vision as a given and going from there to formulate strategy and implement it as policies. In short, a vision is open to leaders to change but closed to managers, who must take a vision as a given.

Material from this essay has been incorporated into The Essence of Leadership: A Cross-Cultural Foundation, which is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon. 

What Fabricating Dumb Lies Says about a Corrupt Public Official and Corruption Itself

You would think that a prime minister of a country would not cover an accusation of corruption with ludicrous lies. For one thing, the lies easily made transparent by fact-checking journalists would reflect back on the statement of innocence itself. Just being accused in public should prompt carefully thought-out lies because the failure to sustain the lies would naturally cause people to conclude that the corruption charge is valid. The connector here is bad character, plus the assumption that it is easy to obviate charges of corruption. This assumption itself may indicate that the office-holder believes that corruption is widespread—and from this belief can come the assumption that it is easy to get away with taking money benefitting the office-holder and spouse. The conduct of Malayia’s prime minister Razak Najib and his wife Mansor Rosmah between 2008 and 2015 bear out my thesis.

The full essay is at "Fabricating Dumb lies."

Corporate Money in Politics: Undue Influence and Conflicts of Interest

Indications of “the pervasive influence of corporate cash in the democratic process, and the extraordinary lengths to which politicians, lobbyists and even judges go to solicit money” can be seen in sealed but leaked court documents in Wisconsin.[1] This glimpse in to the real money-game in business and government shows just how much corporate money is in play. “The files open a window on a world that is very rarely glimpsed by the public, in which millions of dollars are secretly donated by major corporations and super-wealthy individuals to third-party groups in an attempt to sway elections.”[2] In addition, the files show just how easy it is for public officials to deny having been subject to conflicts of interest. The combination of a lot of money and the ability to get away with exploiting a conflict of interest is toxic to a viable representative democracy (i.e., a republic).

The full essay is at "Corporate Money in Politics."

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[1] Ed Pilkington, “Leaded Documents Reveal Secretive Influence of Corporate Cash on Politics,” The Guardian, September 14, 2016.

[2] Ibid.

Exposing Bottom-Feeder Management: Business Schools to the Rescue?

I submit that the management being taught at American business schools does not take into account just how bad some managements actually are. Although I suspect that most of them are at the lower-levels of management, bottom-feeders can achieve some height, organizationally speaking. I don’t believe business-school faculties know just how bad “bottom-feeder” management actually is, or at the very least such management is tolerated rather than triggering a wholesale renovation of the managerial skills being taught. My aim here is to spark efforts to extend managerial science to proffer tactics oriented to correcting even the worst cases. In short, managerial science needs to reach a certain sordid managerial mentality in order to expunge it from even those businesses.

The full essay is at "Exposing Bottom-Feeder Management."