The Badger’s encountered many leaders of enterprises over the years, and most knew that ‘talk is cheap but results matter’. Most were acutely aware that no matter how eloquent they were in communicating their values, their organisation’s strategic objectives, and any changes or investments they wanted to implement, it was results that kept them in their job. According to here, the average tenure of a UK FTSE 100 CEO is a fraction over 6 years and that of a CFO is < 4 years. The average global CEO tenure is apparently ~7 years and falling because in a world dominated by advancing digital technology and economic turmoil, boards demand faster results. It isn’t, of course, just leaders of corporations who know that ’talk is cheap but results matter’. Anyone worth their salt who leads a team, a project, a business unit, or a department in any organisation knows this too because being able to delivery rapid results and milestones on time and to budget under pressure is crucial to being considered successful.
Some leaders can be outspoken and perceived as successful because they have the gift of the gab, even though their actions are dubious, their judgements flawed, and their delivery of results underwhelming. In the Badger’s experience, when the latter situation is exposed, it isn’t long before there are consequences. When you’ve encountered or observed such leadership dynamics over many years, then one’s instincts become highly tuned to detecting that a leader has lost the confidence of those in the project, business unit, or organisation they lead. Accordingly, the Badger’s instincts have been telling him for some time that the President of the USA is struggling because what he communicates is not matched by results.
The US mid-term elections are a few weeks away, and according to recent polls the President’s approval rating amongst the US public isn’t good. Why is that? There will be many opinions about the reasons for this, but the Badger thinks that, holistically, they can all be distilled down to the fact that rhetoric and pledges have not delivered the promised results. The proof has not been in the pudding! The President’s predicament thus appears to be a good example of ‘talk is cheap but results matter’ when it comes to leadership. In the President’s case, this perhaps seems a little surprising for someone with a long career in the business world.
The Badger’s not making a political statement here, he’s merely making an observation using a leader with a very high global profile to illustrate the theme of this piece. Being President is difficult, as is being a leader of a project, business unit, department, or any enterprise or organisation. If you want to succeed as a leader or manager, then your chances of succeeding are greater if ‘talk is cheap but results matter’ is built into your soul…
