Not very long ago, only the good guys did ethical leadership. All very well but it didn’t make much difference to the bottom line apparently. Well life and times in the UK are proving otherwise – get the culture wrong and you could be facing the wall.
How the BBC, NHS, most high street banks and now some food producers must rue the day they decided it was all about profit, targets and bonuses. Ignore the culture in your organization and you ignore it at your peril.
And all the retail brands who ignored their customer needs must regret doing some simple market research.
Lack of checks or possibly blatant disregard will be bringing down a number of food producers in the next couple of weeks. The culture of not checking deliveries properly came from a culture of tacit acceptance, lack of communication and probably management bullying. The culprits will undoubtedly be facing irreparable damage to their reputation and possibly a date in court.
Barclays announced today it’s closing its tax avoidance unit ‘in a bid to repair its battered reputation’. How life could have been so different if they had thought about their brand and their customer first, rather than focus solely on profit.
Everyone knows that the Mid Staffs hospital scandal is merely the tip of the iceberg. Stories such as we heard last week can be replicated in many other hospitals around the country. We’ve all heard or experienced shocking levels of care – or rather lack of it.
The common denominator here is poor leadership. Of course, business leaders have to make a profit. But they need to value and give value to their customers – and that includes listening to them. And finally they need to think about their brand and their culture. Get it right within the organization and you are someway down the road to getting it right for your customers.
So Sampson Hall say you should answer four simple questions about every business decision any leader makes.
Is it honest?
Is it fair?
Is it right for our brand?
Does it provide value for all involved?
If some of the above had addressed these issues, the current headlines would be very different