The Right Leadership Style for the Time

I recently attended a presentation by the Human Resources Director of a major corporation going through bankruptcy. The value of its stock has plummeted to about one percent of its former value and staff has been reduced from 95,000 to 25,000.
I was surprised to hear him criticize one of a string of CEOs as being an effective leader because his style was to build consensus. How could consensus building be wrong?

Suddenly it dawned on me that the company did not have the time to build consensus. It was struggling to survive and decisions had to be made quickly. The benefits of broad commitment to a corporate plan would not be realized if the company had gone out of existence!

The alternative to consensus building is not to isolate oneself and rule by fiat. The CEO needed to gather the best information from as many sources as practical. However, with that information in hand, the CEO needed to act decisively and quickly. He did not have the time to rally the staff behind the idea and collect their feedback to polish the strategy and tactics.

The lesson I learned from this presentation is that timing affects leadership style, as does the situation, as discussed in an earlier entry.