What about leaders?

The Dutch financial daily, Het Financieel Dagblad (FD), is hosting discussions on the essence of leadership. Central themes are: our political leadershipmodel, rewards for top management teams, young high potentials, role of executive vs non-executive boards and leadership qualities.

"If you did not make it at 35, you will never make it"
This thesis was discussed by a columnist. His answer: "your career until you are 40 should be regarded as an internship. After that you have all the skills to really implement your ideas and vision. Most important question is to define your vision. A vision comes from deep within, it is your passion."

I could not agree more. During my interviews for ABN-Amro I had this exact same discussion with two managers. We agreed that leadership is defined by a vision. The most interesting people in this country have hobbies and passions. Our prime minister has brought the word "values" back in our liberal society. The CEO of TNT put CSR on the map with his succesfull partnership with the WFP. The CFO of our Stock Exchange (ex-MCP @ The NL) has a vineyard in France where he spends his free time. Taking it more international, Gore put the climate discussion back on the map.

"Top management teams should be formed by people from within the organisation"
Research stated that top managers coming from within the organisation outperformed organisations who attracted managers externally. Interesting thesis but I find it hard to define my response. It seems to me the best people should be at the positions they are qualified for. If the best people are not working at your firm then you can still attract them. However, people that know the organisation inside out, who have been working there for years have more feeling with the organisation than outsiders. I am not sure here.

I must say that reading this financial daily every day gives me lots of input. Many opinion leaders have a voice here and it is super interesting reading how they feel about issues like these. Therefore I recommend you, when you have time, to read a newspaper or magazine, you could stumble on article like these.

A new government, creation of a vision (??)

I posted a while ago on the post-election drama in the Netherlands. Yesterday a new government coalition announced their plans after weeks of deliberating, team building and so on (yes they had weekend sessions in the woods too :-)). When listening to the result I was indeed very surprised.

The Netherlands has a vision again (this is what they claim). I have tried to find their vision but I could not find it on the Internet. Since two out of three parties have a christian background, family is central in this vision. In practice this comes down to a number of initiatives:

• daycare for children is going to be improved
• familie who put their children in daycare can get some kind of compensation
• highschool students need to do an obligatory socially responsible internship
• books are now free for higher education

Other parts of the vision include bringing more values into Dutch society ( abortion is going to be harder, shops need to be closed on sunday, coffeeshops near schools need to close), making it a better place to live (no liberalization of housing market, environmental taxes for planes and cars, working on integration).

What to think of all this?????

Although I do not agree with some of the content (shops closing for example), it is interesting that this government is not talking about strategies but about vision. Perhaps this is a good way to look at society nowadays. Bringing back values that were lost for a long time should confront people more with a less materialistic side of life. This vision also aims to unite the country instead of dividing it as the previous coalitions did (leading to the disastrous results after elections). Perhaps this is the way to create one country again. Interesting huh??