Leadership as a Contact Sport

From bankers to resources guys, from IT service-providers to CTOs, over the past several weeks one of the persistent refrains that I've been listening to is the need for leadership to be "in touch," even with the highest levels of executives; and the all-too-familiar failure of senior management to actually fulfill this need. As my good friend and co-author Andy Boynton, Dean of the Carroll School at Boston College, is so fond of saying: "Leadership is a contact sport." Yet, more often than not, leaders are not to be seen; too busy, too distant: conspicuous by their absence.

In many ways, the Virtuoso Teams book was all about "Virtuoso Leaders," who were always, always, in the center of things; fingers on the pulse of the team, well-aware of what and who was going on. This may be considerably more difficult in complex organizations, especially when they are geographically dispersed, but it does not excuse the absence of leadership presence that I am daily hearing about, almost everywhere I go.

The Demise of Polaroid Film

The recent announcement of Polaroid's decision to cease producing "instant film" is a stark reminder of the power of disruptive innovation. Digital photography is, of course, the ultimate "instant photography," but it is still somewhat sobering to see an icon such as Polaroid depart this market space. No matter that Tom Beaudoin, Polaroid's President, COO and CFO [& obviously a pretty busy guy], has said about the move that: "We're trying to reinvent Polaroid so it lives on for the next 30 to 40 years," it still is the demise of an innovation that we've always taken for granted that is a sobering wakeup call for the need to attend to innovation, and strategic revitalization.