On Lost Leaders

Leadership is a perennially interesting subject. I’ve worked under leaders who were captivating, interesting, engaging, who knew what they were doing and who I was quite happy to follow. I’ve also worked under the usual British sort.

Two of them have recently been of interest – one who rose from complete obscurity and sank back down there in less time than the life of a Virgin Rail open return. The other has a long record of previous to take into consideration. Both are naturally paid a king’s ransom for their troubles.

Exhibit A, Mr G Entwistle. Ex-DG of the BBC, Mr E appeared to  be completely unsuited to leadership of any kind, let alone the highly-political dog’s dinner of a job he was offered and took, believing himself to be the best candidate for the job. As soon as the first inevitable crisis appeared, he wilted into nothingness, protesting that nobody told him that his journalists were going to take a rack of bad decisions, and that he was either doing his homework or at football practice when it all went wrong. Nobody Brought It To My Attention, he said, as though it wasn’t any part of his business to keep tabs on things.

Having been schooled exclusively in the corridors of the state broadcaster, he seemed nowhere but at sea when forced to face up to the standards and practices of the outside world. No amount of Newspeak nor telebabble could defend him from the rest of us and the way we are - only in the strange world of BBC-land could he survive and thrive.

Poor old George. The only saving grace was that he gave one of the most entertaining interviews as his final party piece, being skewered bit by bit by a reluctant John Humphrys on Today. Humphrys sounded uncomfortable in the role of Lord High Executioner to me, and the sigh from Jim Naughtie when Humphrys handed over to him was audible in the glens. Humphrys’ sign-off at the end was curt and abrupt, as though he just wanted to be rid of this piece of dog-dirt of a fiasco.

Entwistle demonstrated not one of the behaviours that a competent leader would have shown. No fight, no resolve, no argument – and clearly no team in place to look after him and forewarn him. No thought police, no storm-troopers. If ever a man sounded all alone, it was George. How Fatty Patten ever thought he could cut it is a story yet to be told, possibly in the book that will follow Mr Patten’s departure – keep a spot on your Christmas present list open just in case, there’s time yet.

Exhibit B, Lord King of Cock-Up at the Bank of England – well, can you think of a better title to mark his inevitable elevation? To précis his career, Part I: it wasn’t possible to foresee the financial crisis nor to do anything to prevent its happening, your Honour; and Part II: nothing can be done to make things any better now it’s all gone wrong. So, Lord King… what exactly are you there for, then?

One small task allotted to you is to keep inflation within limits (I seem to recall it was around 2% or so in those far-off days of G Brown’s Mekonic rule), and to write a letter to someone important if it strays. The only people to benefit from the last few years have been Basildon Bond. I can’t believe anyone even bothers to keep the letters on file.

You can (and I would) argue that both the BBC and the Treasury are organisations designed by lunatics and destined to fail; and that the leaders can’t be blamed when it all goes horribly wrong. But if that’s the case, then would we really miss them if they weren’t there? And instead we just had someone ordinary, doing an ordinary job at an ordinary rate of reward.

Just a thought.