WHEN IS GOOD QUALITY LEADERSHIP SCARY?
Imagine having an executive leader who delivered consistently high performance for your organisation.
A leader who has delivered excellent commercial returns, growth and performance for the organisation. Someone who has developed key strategic relationships for the organisation, in country, the region, and perhaps globally. A leader who is conscious of the need to continue growing themselves and the people around them so there is a robust leadership talent pipeline equipped to lead the organisation now and into the future. A leader who has delivered on their CSG responsibilities, and who has maintained or grown the market position, reputation, and recognition of your organisation.
Imagine a leader who has met or exceeded all the measurements of quality high performance leadership.
How would you deal with them?
What would you do with them?
What would be the right next step for them and for your organisation?
Think about it … I mean really think about it.
What would be your response?
§ How would you value a leader like this?
§ How would you incentivise them for ongoing success?
§ How would you support them?
§ How would you encourage them?
§ How would you develop them?
§ How would you challenge them?
Let me share what I am seeing. A distinct pattern.
Over the course of the last 18 months, I have seen exceptional leaders completely sidelined or ousted from their organisations. CEO and C-suite leaders who have consistently delivered high performance on any measure.
What is so wrong that these leaders are sidelined, gaslighted, treated unfairly, disrespected, undermined and removed?
Why are these leaders not being supported, so they can continue to deliver excellent outcomes for their organisations and people?
I am saddened and concerned by what I see. I do not want to draw conclusions, but I am struggling not to.
What is so scary about effective, quality executive leaders who happen to be female?
After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backward and in high heels.
– Ann Richards, former governor of Texas
I do not understand how what I am seeing can be a good thing for our present or our future.
What is going on?
In every case I have observed, these are high performing leaders who show the potential for even more. And in each case, they happen to be female, and the people who have ousted them are not. The boards, the global executives. It is disappointing and disheartening.
What is so scary about an outstanding female leader?
Are they to be feared? Are they threatening? Are they too challenging? Are they taking your spotlight?
I want to know.
Of course, this is not all organisations, but there is enough of a pattern to notice the pattern.
Good and great leadership is exactly that. Rather than stifling it, what if we encourage it, and set up conditions for success in which great leadership can thrive?
Yet, this is not all I have noticed. In each of the instances that I have recently observed, it is not simply that the leader has been removed from their role or been pushed out of the organisation. It is the way this has been done.
There has been a clear expectation that these individuals would quite happily take a more limited role. Or they would continue to execute the same portfolio of activity and not receive any of the recognition while someone else who has been appointed takes the credit. Or the role would change fundamentally, with the expectation the indidivual would accept a ‘different’ role, yet no process of redundancy is in place.
The way in which these changes have been introduced has been, in short, disrespectful, and, if I go deeper, disgraceful.
Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people — your family, friends, and coworkers, and even strangers you meet along the way.
Barbara Bush, former First Lady
Now, of course, there are situations where it is time for a change of CEO or influential executive leader. It is the right thing for the business. This is normal. Yet the process of making such a change should, I believe, be underpinned by positive intention. Supportive and creating opportunity, rather than soul-destroying, and in some cases borderline illegal.
I just can’t really believe it is 2025 and this sort of thing is happening.
Let us all demonstrate leadership, not just when it suits us, but with consistency.
Let us know, be, and do leadership better.
Leadership is not about gender.
I have never thought it was about gender, but I am seeing a pattern, and I am concerned about the implications if this pattern continues.
If you are noticing the same pattern, I imagine you too are very uncomfortable with it.
I urge you to stand for real leadership, rather than walk past.
I’d love to know your thoughts.
Are you based in Adelaide or Hobart and would like to join me for breakfast?
Adelaide
Tuesday 27 May
7:15am — 8:45am
Location: Garçon Bleu Bar
Sofitel Adelaide
108 Currie Street, Adelaide
Hobart
Wednesday 4 June
7:15am — 8:45am
Tesoro Restaurant
Mövenpick Hotel Hobart
28 Elizabeth Street, Hobart
This is a ticketed event, reserve your place now.
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