Donald Trump and examples of bad leadership

The words "You're fired!" are now officially engraved in the brains of most Americans. If you haven't watched The Apprentice or Celebrity Apprentice at least once, you're probably living under a rock next door to the Geico guys. And while "you're fired" can seem like an easy, simple and often right "answer", sometimes the reasons "The Donald" gives are really guaranteed to produce long-term BAD outcomes.

Taking responsibility

One of the worst offenses I can think of in managing a business or organization is to tolerate or reward employees who never take responsibility for their actions. If something goes wrong, it's always the fault of someone else, the equipment or the circumstances. Blame shifting is rampant in corporate America (and government), so the strategy must work on some level. YET, when someone offers to stand up and take responsibility for the failure (or non-success) of a project, we hear "You're fired!"

Case in point -- Celebrity Apprentice Mark McGrath. When his pirate-themed campaign for Australian Gold suntan lotion didn't play with the execs, he didn't whine or moan that Gary Busey sabotaged the walk-through or that any of his teammates messed up (and they did). Instead, he said simply, if the main reason they didn't like this was because of the pirate concept, then he took responsibility.

Well hallelujah!! More people should do this and they should be rewarded for it. If we can't tolerate failure once and awhile, we'll never see success over the long haul. Instead, we'll get the always safe responses or even more insidious, we'll get untruthful ones. The example Trump set was that wingnuts like Busey can get promoted (kept on) while someone willing to "man up" gets the axe. And that seems to me especially out of sync for high risk, high reward businesses like Trump's.

Now let's apply that same philosophy to our government. Everyone knows we're going broke. Yet because it's always someone else's fault (Bush, Clinton, Wall Street, Obama, whoever), it's never ANYONE'S responsibility to fix it. Instead, they'll all keep pointing fingers at each other until it's too late and the country is "out of business."

If only "you're fired" were as simple as it sounds. And by the way, I won't be voting for Donald Trump for President.

04.25.2011. 19:05

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