Lessons in life from Boris Johnson’s ‘car crash’ interview with BBC’s Eddie Mair

The BBC website, youtube and the front pages of two national dailies have been swift to pick up on London Mayor Boris Johnson’s ‘Bicycle Crash’ interview with Eddie Mair on The Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, yesterday, March 24.

Mr Mair positioned the 15 minute interview very clearly from the start: “Now before we talk about you, let’s talk about immigration”.  From there he asked Mr Johnson about the Olympic Stadium.

So Mr Johnson knew what was coming next. Or did he? And what can we learn as a result?

About half-way through (7:19) Mr Mair changed tack: “I know we could talk about this all day (Mr Johnson’s view of the great deal secured by the government on the Olympic Stadium for the taxpayer) but I want to talk about you” and proceeded to skewer Mr Johnson in the next five minutes, calling into question his suitability for high office (as Prime Minister one day?), as his integrity fell under the spot-light of Mr Mair’s laser like focus. His coyness to talk about himself was to this viewer merely thinly veiled disingenuousness – “I want to avoid that”  – particularly as he is the subject of documentary maker Michael Cockerell’s programme ‘Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise’ which will be shown on BBC2 today, Monday March 25, 9pm and seems only to happy to talk about himself in the clips already on the BBC website.

To paraphrase Mohammed Ali, Mr Mair danced like a butterfly in his skilful questioning and he stung Mr Johnson like a bee several times to lethal effect, continually outmanoeuvring his ‘guest’.

So this morning, Mr Johnson may be feeling punch-drunk. I wonder if he is licking his wounds, wondering how to salvage some positives – let alone his ambitions as a leader in the political arena – from his disastrous and poorly prepared performance? Does he even realise he has been in a ‘car crash’ interview? He will, I feel sure, find some way to spin this bicycle crash in his favour. We’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, what can we learn from both Mr Mair and Mr Johnson about how to conduct ourselves, personally and professionally?

From Mr Mair there are three key lessons…

1. Preparation is key. He had clearly done his homework. He had seen the documentary about Mr Johnson (who hadn’t) and was informed and prepared. This was clearly no one-off. It was also the case with Mr Mair’s next guest, the actor, Henry Goodman. Mr Mair disclosed that he had been to the Old Vic the previous afternoon to see the revival of Terence Rattigan’s revival ‘The Winslow Boy’ in which Mr Goodman stars. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, the play is about integrity.  Preparation gave Mr Mair the confidence of knowing his subject.
2. Have the courage of your convictions. If he had concerns about negative repercussions, either personal or professional, he didn’t let them show. He repeatedly challenged and focused on Mr Johnson’s integrity because he believed it was right to do so and drew even greater confidence from those convictions accordingly.
3. Integrity is everything. He made it clear in his positioning what he wanted to talk about. And introduced the deeper issue – our actions and behaviour are manifestations of our beliefs, values and most important of all, our integrity, especially for those representing us in public service. Without integrity, everything is just a deceit. Nowhere is this more brilliantly demonstrated than in actor Kevin Spacey’s portrayal of Congressman and fixer Francis “Frank” Underwood in the political thriller ‘House of Cards’ now airing on Netflix, reprising and updating the role originally created by Ian Richardson in the 1990’s.

And the lessons from Mr Johnson are very similar…

1. Preparation v Ego. A person who is extremely proud of his or her abilities will often suffer a setback or failure because he or she tends to be overconfident and to make errors of judgement.  He gave the perception that he had just ‘shown up and winged it’. If he had been advised or coached, it didn’t show. Does he believe in his abilities to such an extent that it will be the undoing of him? Did he let his ego get in the way?  And does he even have the self-awareness to know that the interview was a serious set-back? Is this Mr Johnson’s biggest blind-spot?
2. Integrity is everything. This is particularly true of those in public life – though none of us exempt – and when there is a pattern of behaviour, we can lose the trust others place in us in an instant.  Mr Johnson is not the first, nor will he be the last. History repeats itself. This blog recently covered Chris Huhne’s fall from grace for a serious lapse in his integrity.
3. An acceptance of responsibility He failed to acknowledge that Mr Mair had a different point of view from his own about his integrity. This means listening, without interruption and then acknowledging. It doesn’t mean agreeing. Had he done so, he could have cut short that part of the interview, leaving Mr Mair with nowhere else to go. Instead, he was continually reeling on the back foot, justifying his actions, making him appear weak and prolonging his agony.

So if you’ve seen the interview or read the press comment, what do you think? What’s your experience?  Have you had a ‘car crash experience’? What did you learn and what have you done as a result?

Post a reply or send me an email at markgrant1@me.com  It will be great to hear from you.

Honesty v ego: the lesson we can learn from Chris Huhne – The Man Who Fell To Earth.

The front page of almost every newspaper today carries a headline about Chris Huhne and his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce being sentenced to eight months imprisonment for perverting the course of justice.

In his interview with The Guardian Political Editor, Patrick Wintour, Chris Huhne explained that it was too easy to rationalise Vicky Pryce taking his penalty points rather than him losing his licence. It was a ‘ridiculously small misjudgement’ that escalated into a catalogue of lies and the unfolding story over ten years, leading to their downfall and imprisonment.

In the same interview he says that it was wrong to do what he did. Does he really mean that? Or is it only because he got found out? We’ll never know for sure. What we do know is that Chris Huhne catastrophically misjudged the impact that his dishonesty caused, not just to him, but his family. And also that he joins a (long) line of other political luminaries who also lied and fell to earth: John Profumo, Jeffery Archer and Jonathan Aitken.

Like those before him, Chris Huhne gambled and lost – when it came to making a choice between honesty (and the trust that goes with it) and breaking the law (to protect his parliamentary status and lifestyle), he put his ego first, with damaging consequences.

So what is the lesson we can learn from this?

Well, how many of us – me included – put serving our own interests above the public good, our organisation/company or family/friends?  We may not be breaking the law, but we may be breaking a moral code and with it, the trust of others. And that can be the start of a slippery slope. And if – or is that when – we get found out, the damage can be devastating.

Many commentators on the subject of leadership talk about trust and honesty as the most important attributes of those we would willingly follow or engage with. So perhaps Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce have done us all a favour – and given us a timely kick up the backside to examine our consciences and behaviour and decide if we are truly trustworthy or not, personally and professionally if we are to avoid falling to earth too.

What do you think?

Post a reply or send me an email at markgrant1@me.com

It will be great to hear from you.

What can we learn about responsibility and humility from Everton Manager, David Moyes? #Leadership #Teamwork

Clear favourites to progress to the FA Cup semi-finals, Everton – with home ground advantage – lost 3-0 at Goodison Park to underdogs Wigan in Saturday’s quarter-final. Manager David Moyes, was quick acknowledge Wigan’s success:

“We can’t argue against the fact Wigan were the better side…it was an opportunity to get to an FA Cup semi-final but we can’t complain.”     Source: BBC

 

What’s more interesting are his closing remarks in the same post-match report:

“I had to make a decision and we’re all in it together. I thought we needed to try something. When you lose one goal you can try to calm things down but when you lose three it makes things so difficult. But this is a team here and we work together as a team. I don’t point the finger at anybody. I might do it in the dressing room but I never do it publicly.”

It was clear almost from the kick-off that Moyes’ team under-performed, failing to show their characteristic commitment, team work and resultant fluid play. Yet Moyes avoided blaming anyone publicly and talked instead about collective responsibility.

Avoiding blame and pointing fingers mean that typically any debate is more likely to focus on what can be learned and what actions will be taken in the future, in a constructive way. When blame is the name of the game, the atmosphere is likely to be tense. Those under scrutiny are more likely to adopt a defensive posture, focusing instead on justifying (a euphemism for excuses?) actions, becoming entrenched, failing to take responsibility, learning from mistakes and moving forwards.

Now compare this with your own experiences in your organisation and team. And contrast this with one particularly vivid recollection of my own – working for a Buying Director who called everyone together for a ‘debrief’ after a memorable ‘buying disaster’ (too much of the wrong product). In a booming voice he bellowed at us:

“ I don’t care what went wrong and what we’re doing about it, I just want to know who to blame.”

Can you picture the scene? The atmosphere? The discussion? You’d be right in thinking that body language was closed with eyes downcast avoiding the pointed gaze of the Director at all costs. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife.  I know that all I could think of was “don’t look at me or ask me directly”.  What do you think happened to innovation in the wake of that ‘debrief’? Well that went out of the window until he moved on some months later and his successor was appointed. The treatment or threat of it – demotion to the fictitious ‘Broken Biscuits Buying Dept. – for unsuccessful risk-taking was just too punitive to take any sort of buying risk at all. Does that sound familiar to you?

So, as David Moyes, his support team and playing squad meet today to discuss Saturday’s defeat, let’s hope their discussion is constructive. Let’s also hope that he doesn’t ‘point fingers’ and undo the good he had done by demonstrating restraint and humility in his post-match comments. His squad is much more likely to pick themselves up and demonstrate their characteristic commitment and teamwork in their next match – they’re at home entertaining 2^nd place Manchester City, who coincidentally qualified for the semi-finals by beating Barnsley 5-0 in their quarter-final on Sunday.

• So what can you take from this piece?
• What’s your experience when things ‘go wrong’?
• For instance, is the behaviour consistent with the values of the organisation?
• And when it isn’t, what happens to trust, engagement and productivity?

Post a reply or email at markgrant1@me.com

It will be great to hear from you.

High performers reflect and reset their goals at the year end. Do you?

As we enter December and 2012 draws to a close, it’s all too easy for many of us to get caught in the whirl that is Xmas. Isn’t it just as important to take stock of the year and set direction for 2013? If so, here are five questions you may want to ask yourself, including number three, which is tricky :

1. What kind of year has it been for me?
2. Have I achieved what I set out to achieve?
3. Do I know what I wanted to achieve?
4. What has gone well? What hasn’t?
5. What have I learned?

I’m going to suggest you make some time to ask these questions before plotting your course for 2013, so that you maximise the chances of making it a fulfilling year for yourself, however you gauge fulfilment. And just as importantly, to write down your responses, so that you can refer them during 2013 and maintain direction and motivation – if you like, they’re your compass to guide you and keep you on track, especially when the going gets tough. That’s what many of our successful Olympians do – they write their goals down and they go one stage further and share them publicly, increasing the level of commitment to them. (Jessica Ennis at 7mins 30 seconds in). So, if it’s good enough for them, isn’t it good enough for us too?

If you would like a series of questions to help guide you as you reflect on 2012 and set your direction for 2013, please email me at:

markgrant1@me.com

I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

High performing leaders make quick, yet informed decisions. Do you?

A preliminary meeting – with John, a prospective client and newly appointed director at a global consulting company – and its aftermath, illustrates the impact of what happens when we don’t. John had recently received 360 feedback from a selection of senior and junior colleagues, as well as peers.  The aim of the feedback – or as I prefer – feed forward is to raise John’s awareness of what behaviours are serving him and his colleagues well and what aren’t so that he look forward and perform at an even higher level.

Prior to our exploratory meeting to gauge whether we were a good fit, John sent me a copy of his 360. All his colleagues commented that he was highly competent, logical and passionate about his role, his team and the company. Yet there was also a consistency in their views about his interactions with others: he avoided consultation and input from others and this could lead to his isolation and their disengagement. Alongside that, he was slow in decision-making. Both points together were leading to a loss of momentum on various projects and initiatives and missed opportunities.

When we met, John explained that he wanted to work on these areas and that he was keen to start coaching as soon as possible. He also explained that he had arranged to meet another prospective coach later the same day and would get back to me after that meeting with his decision.

Three weeks elapsed before John called me – I decided I wasn’t going to chase him because if he did go ahead with me, it would be a useful example to explore his approach to decision making and what the underlying cause and anxieties were that were leading to delays.  Plus I wanted him to be 100% sure that I was right for him and him for me.

When John eventually called me, he explained that he’d like to go ahead, to which I replied that I had reservations.  I explained that typically, those who prevaricate in making the decision generally benefit less from coaching than those who decide – and act – more quickly. They tend not to do what they agree to do as a result of a session together and will feel frustrated and disappointed with themselves, their coach and their results. And that it often signals how they are in their daily interactions with colleagues. Often they are perfectionists – they think they need to have all the answers – and this can lead to their colleagues disengaging, with a loss of performance. I asked John if this is the case with him and he said it was. I said I was confident I could help him and then asked him on a scale of 1-10 how willing was he to make changes? He thought for a moment and said ‘8’. To which I replied that I was only willing to work with him if it was a ‘10’. And what would need to happen for him to be a ‘10’?  Again he thought and after a few moments he said ‘I need to know that if something’s not as good – as perfect – as it can possibly be, it will be good enough and that I won’t be letting others and myself down.’

I was reminded of an old and respected CEO that I worked for once and quoted him to John: “The price of perfection is prohibitive, John. Are you letting yourself and others down by your decision making style? What we can do is unpick how and why you make decisions and then look at when that is/isn’t appropriate, as well as look at steps to adjust  to get better results. I will be there to support you. How does that sound?”

John said it sounded good and we agreed to work together on that basis. We’ve only just started and I will post another piece on John’s progress in due course.

So how do you decide? Are you a quick decision maker? Or not? What impact does your ‘default’ approach have on you? Your colleagues? Your organisation? And what will you do as a result?

Post a reply or shoot me an email at markgrant1@me.com

It will be great to hear from you.

High performing team members demonstrate the top 4 characteristics that we look for in our colleagues. Do you?

Yesterday’s Leadership Insights’ post was about collaborative leadership behaviour and its key to success as organisational structures are becoming increasingly flat.

And the most effective collaboration requires the collaborator to balance his or her personal agenda with that of the organisation. That means being a team player, defined by a search on google as a person who plays or works well as a member of a team or group.

But what does that mean exactly? In their book Credibility leadership experts Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner conducted detailed research and list the top 20 most desirable characteristics that we look for in our colleagues – those we whom we collaborate. The top 4 characteristics by a considerable margin are:

• Honesty
• Cooperativeness
• Dependability
• Competence

While high on the list,  it’s interesting that technical competence is less important than how we conduct ourselves with our colleagues and that means how we behave. So what does that mean in our daily interactions with those we collaborate? To get clarity, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Are you sincere and truthful?
• Do you consistently do what you say you will do when you say you will do it, thereby honouring your commitments?
• Do you demonstrate a willingness and a track-record to share control, power and credit?
• Are you willing to listen – really listen – and that means without judgement and interruption?
• Are you reliable?

Be honest. Give yourself a score out of 10 for each of these behaviours. Or better still, if you have the appetite and the courage, seek feedback from your colleagues and be willing to act on what you learn. After all, your future and that of your organisation may depend on it.

What do you think? Post a reply. Or alternatively, send me an email with your thoughts at mark@roadmapconsultants.com

It will be great to hear from you.

 

Leadership lessons from an unexpected source – Guy Fawkes!

Although firework displays have been taking place for well over a week where I live,  November 5 is the ‘official’ date that commemorates Guy Fawkes’ failed Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords in 1605. His effigy is traditionally burned on a bonfire, commonly accompanied by a firework display.

A tip off and search during the early hours of November 5, 1605 found Fawkes guarding the explosives. Over the next few days, he was arrested, questioned and tortured. Fawkes eventually confessed and was convicted of high treason. Immediately before his execution on January 31, 1606, he jumped from the hangman’s gallows and broke his neck, avoiding the agony of being hung, drawn and quartered that followed.

While I don’t agree with his beliefs and politics and certainly I don’t condone his violent actions, there are some lessons about leadership we can take from Guy Fawkes.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you clear and passionate about your personal values and beliefs?
• Are you clear and passionate about your organisation’s values and beliefs?
• Are you personal values and beliefs in alignment with your organisation’s?
• Do you consistently act/behave in alignment with your values and beliefs?
• Are you willing to do whatever you it takes – ethically and honestly – to achieve your goals and those of your organisation?

If the answer to any of these questions ‘no’, it’s likely you have some anxieties because of the mismatch. And this may impact on how you behave/act, causing underperformance through a lack of motivation and commitment.

In his most popular book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that has sold over 25 million copies since it was published in 1989, Dr. Stephen Covey writes:

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.” 

So what will that encourage you to do as a result? There may not be fireworks, though there may certainly be tears if you do nothing. Under huge pressure, many people end up like Guy Fawkes,  jumping before they are pushed. And in doing so, the organisation never changes.

What do you think? What’s your experience? Post a reply. It will be great to hear from you.

Are you feeling uninspired? Here are six questions to ask that can help you regain direction and momentum.

A recent, unexpected and welcome phone call from Jane – a director of well-established consultancy and also a lapsed client – led to a cup of coffee earlier this week. (I seem to meet so many of my clients in coffee shops!) After a couple of minutes exchanging pleasantries, Jane fell silent, looked down, stirred her Americano, sighed and then explained: “it’s like this, Mark. I feel I’ve gone as far as I can in my current role. Sure, there are day-to-day challenges, but I feel I’ve stopped learning and growing. I can feel myself becoming bored, complacent and if this carries on, disengaged. When I look around the boardroom table at my colleagues, there’s nobody to look up, to stretch and challenge me – to inspire me – and I don’t really know what to do.”

Over the years, I’ve coached many clients – and myself – through variants of Jane’s challenge. Being a baby boomer who turns 60 (!) in January, I’m always reminded of a little known song written in 1972 by The Spencer Davis Group /Blind Faith/Traffic’s Steve Winwood called ‘Sometimes I feel so uninspired’ with uplifting lyrics and music on the subject, though I realize the music may not be to everyone’s taste.

A lack of inspiration is often due to unclear direction, personally and/or professionally. In turn this can lead to a loss of momentum or getting stuck (as in Jane’s case) and can be accompanied with a loss of motivation and disengagement. In some cases even depression if not checked.

So here are six questions I asked Jane and that you can ask yourself if you lack inspiration. They are designed to help you get the traction you need to move in the right direction and depend on you writing down your responses to get the real benefit…

• Looking inside yourself: what do you want for yourself personally and professionally, that will inspire you and why? Write down your responses and make them SMART

• Looking outside yourself: who and what will inspire you and why? Again write down your responses and make them SMART.

• Who in your network of contacts can you arrange to meet periodically for a coffee, lunch, drink or even just a short phone call, to inspire you?

• Who can you shadow for a day – in your organization or theirs – to give you a different perspective and that will kick-start you?

• What conferences/events/Linkedin groups are you attending/do you belong to that will ignite you?

• What are you reading, watching and listening to that inspires you?

After a couple of cups of coffee, Jane said she felt more inspired and motivated and could begin to see the way forward and she had regained the momentum she had lost. I’d like to think it was the questions that she found her own answers to and not the coffee! Only time will tell where this leads Jane – in her current role or elsewhere.

What’s your experience? What do you do to remain inspired? What do you do when you feel uninspired and lacking direction? Post a reply. It will be great to hear from you.

In the wake of ‘Savile-gate’ and the BBC’s failure – what are you doing about workplace bullying?

Media attention has shifted focus – albeit perhaps temporarily – from the BBC and rightly returned to the 300+ victims of child abuse perpetrated by Jimmy Savile. Most of Savile’s victims have suffered in silence for 30 years or more. It’s hard to imagine the trauma they have endured and just because he died in 2011 and the vile acts he perpetrated are now being openly discussed and justice being sought, it doesn’t mean that they have stopped suffering.

In his excellent piece in the Evening Standard, journalist Matthew d’Ancona wrote:

“Jimmy Savile’s monstrous artistry was to find his perfect habitat in one of the nation’s most trusted institutions. For decades, he exploited the power, prominence and protection afforded him by the BBC to abuse the young. Paradoxically, his sheer oddity – the fact that he looked like a central casting caricature of a child molester – was all the camouflage he needed. As the radio and TV presenter Paul Gambaccini said in Monday’s astonishing Panorama exposé, Savile hid “in plain sight”.”

The implication being that Savile could get away with it, unchallenged. As victims have testified in this case as well as spokespeople for children’s charities, the onus seems to be on the victims to prove their case and because they don’t have the same power or status as their perpertrators, they are not taken seriously and believed, with action being taken.

The roles of perpetrator and victim exist far beyond child abuse. Workplace bullying is widespread in the UK and arguably endemic. It’s an elephant in the room – like Savile, it’s in plain sight, – yet it seems to get brushed under the carpet and not talked about. Here are just some of the statistics available from HR & Diversity Management Limited’s Website:

• Samaritans say that 8 in 10 workers are affected by workplace bullying (Jan 2008).
• Statistics documented by Portsmouth University insist that 80% of managers know that bullying is taking place in their workplace; few admitted being involved though.
• 49% of managers have suffered bullying themselves.
• 37% of managers say they have had no proper management training.
• 80% of calls to The National Bullying Helpline are from the Public Sector.
• Bullying affects 1 in 4 people in the workplace, today

Besides the psychological impact on the victims of bullying, there is also a substantial financial cost too:

• BERR* alleges that disputes cost the UK £120 million per annum
• 19 million sick days are lost due to bullying per annum
• Sickness absence is costing the UK: £13 billion per annum

(*BERR was the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, the predecessor to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.)

Now consider your workplace and your organisation. Or think back through your career. Can you think of individuals who bully or bullied a colleague or a number of colleagues, with impunity? It’s probably happening right now, somewhere close by you.

• Are you turning a blind eye and therefore complicit?
• Do you have a culture that allows bullying to happen?
• Do you have an anti-bullying policy?
• Do you enforce the policy?
• Are you the victim of bullying?
• Are you in fact a bully?
• And most importantly, as a leader, what are you doing about it?

There are plenty of resources online that can help. Searching on google will return plenty of help, whether you are being bullied or you are a bully and you want to stop; if you don’t have an anti-bullying policy in place or it’s failing to work effectively to eradicate it.

While workplace bullying is clearly not the same as child abuse, it still needs to stop. We need to learn lessons from the BBC’s failures and act on them. At least then one good thing will result from ‘Savile-gate’ at the BBC.

Post a reply. Let me know what you think. It will be great to hear from you.

100th Blog Piece: BBC Director-General, George Entwistle – Credible Leader Or Not? And What About You?

BBC Director-General George Entwistle’s recent account before the Commons Select Committee to answer questions about the BBC and serial child abuser Jimmy Savile has been widely criticized in the media and raises many questions about the nature of leadership and organizational culture, beyond Savile’s vile actions.

Whether he was (or wasn’t) prepared/coached and informed of the facts, it’s all about the perception he created. And to commentators who forensically examined his performance, he seemed ill prepared and ill at ease, lacking authority, confidence and conviction in his responses to questioning from MP’s.

According to respected leadership experts, Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner in their book The Leadership Challenge, we have to believe the messenger before we believe the message. Based on what we witnessed, George Entwistle lacked what Kouzes & Posner call ‘source credibility’. We recognise the absence of this leadership characteristic – as in George Entwistle’s case – when someone appears out of their depth.

When questioned by the Select Committee about his conversation with Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News, the wheels seemed to come off George Entwistle’s wagon altogether. She gave him a ‘heads up’ about the potential need to change the Xmas tv programme schedules, for which he was responsible at the time – tributes to Jimmy Savile had already been planned for broadcast and the Newsnight programme then in development about Savile’s persistent abuse of children over many years and on BBC premises would scupper these tributes. He simply thanked her for the ‘heads up’ as he described it and left it at that.

This ‘ten second conversation’ at an awards luncheon coupled with his responses to questions posed by MP’s gives us a revealing insight into George Entwistle’s leadership style and the drawbacks of the seemingly rigid, hierarchical structure and organizational culture at the BBC:

• Where was George Entwistle’s ‘natural curiosity’ as one MP put it?
• Why didn’t he ask Helen Boaden to elaborate?
• Why did he think that asking more questions would be ‘showing undue interest’?
• Wasn’t it his responsibility to ask questions and to understand the impact the Newsnight programme would have on scheduling and to make an informed decision?
• Why did he act passively and wait for the ‘BBC structures and processes to report upwards’ and for Helen Boaden to come back to him?
• Where was his sense of urgency to resolve the potential impact on scheduling?
• What does this tell us about his decision making style and the BBC’s decision-making processes and its silo culture?
• Where was his commercial awareness to spot a news scoop, even though he was responsible at that time for scheduling and not journalistic content?

Commons Select Committee member and former BBC journalist Ben Bradshaw made the point to Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight in the wake of the George Entwistle’s appearance before the Commons Select Committee that George Entwistle must “get a grip, assemble the facts and act on them quickly”, and not wait for the findings of the two independent enquiries he has put in place. He needs to demonstrate his agility.

The implication is that the Director General needs to be seen by the public to be acting robustly to restore confidence in the BBC and him. George Entwistle must change perceptions and demonstrate that he is indeed a credible leader and that the stewardship of a national institution is in safe hands.

So as you reflect on this piece, consider your role as a leader, the perceptions others have of you, the vitality and transparency of your organizational culture, particularly when under pressure or in crisis. What will it encourage you to do as a result and when?

Post a reply, it will be great to hear from you.

PS. As a postscript to this piece, the really sad thing is the impact that the BBC has had in ‘Savile-gate’ and the tailspin that George Entwistle and the Corporation now find themselves in could have been avoided. The focus could and should have rightly remained on the victims of Savile’s vile and cruel abuse. If only George Entwistle had dug deeper in his conversation with Helen Boaden or had visibly flexed his muscles as Director General when ITV’s programme about Savile had aired three weeks ago.