Leadership in Challenging Times
I had the privilege of speaking to the CEO Forum in Jakarta, Indonesia. My keynote revolved around the subject of Leadership: Pathway to Greatness. I based my session on the work of Jim Collin's - Good to Great and Kouzes & Posner's Leadership Practices. Though both were Western models, I used them as a reference point to highlight Asian best practices. I did not touch upon much of Jack Welch's thoughts though. Interestingly when I brought up the subject of getting the right people on the bus as an important element to achieve Level 5 leadership, the President of one of Indonesia's leading airlines highlighted his situation. It was not about getting the right people on the bus but it was about getting rid of the poor performers. To him, that was the most challenging role as a CEO particularly in a highly political situation. He referred to JackWelch's focus on getting rid of the 'C' players if all the attempts to move them to 'B' or 'A...