Forget parties or Pincher- this is what really did it for Boris
Whether you are running a scaling business, or are Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, leadership comes with its challenges.
The news has moved on to who will replace Boris Johnson as Prime Minister following his resignation, but his 3 years in office will go down in history- whether you agree with him or not.
Many have suggested that ‘Partygate’ and ‘Pincher-gate’ were the key reasons behind Boris’ downfall.
Our experience of executive development, which spans more than thirty years however, tells us that there is more to it than that.
In this article we identify what really led to Boris’ demise. We also highlight what you can learn from this as a leader looking to build a world-class team to support your scaling ambitions.
A perfect team needs vision, purpose and process:
When we identified the key aspects of the perfect team that put a man on the moon in 1969, we highlighted that a mixture of the following three ways of processing information, provides the basis for a perfect team:
- The vision (the when and where, green way of processing information)
- The purpose (the why and who, red way of processing information)
- The process (the what and how, blue way of processing information)
A perfect, world-class team then, needs vision, purpose and process.
NASA was vital for the moon landings, but process and bureaucracy can go too far
Thinking back to the perfect team that put a man on the moon, we highlighted that NASA was a vital piece of the puzzle, from a process perspective.
While President JFK provided the vision, and the purpose came from the Cold War situation at the time, the logistics of putting a man on the moon was no easy task, and NASA provided the breakthroughs needed.
However, while process is needed for any world-class team, there is a difference between process, and process for the sake of process.
In other words, when process and structure is added for the sake of it, it can stifle innovation and can actually be the death of vision.
Leadership is about the next mountain top and lifting your team up
When Boris became Prime Minister in 2019, Brexit was a mess and he was elected on a clear mandate to ‘Get Brexit Done by January 31st 2020’. It was also clear that he wanted to approach things differently- from investment in infrastructure to the police force.
Brexit was the main focus of the election campaign and eventual victory, but more importantly, it provided a vision for people to get behind.
Once the emergency was over though, the status quo re-established itself, and lots of challenges arose around the other aspects of his policies.
Getting Brexit done achieved the core mission of the government- they had reached the top of the mountain- but there was no next mountain.
Levelling up became an almost meaningless slogan because it was not attached to a clear vision. As we highlighted when we looked at Boris’ pandemic messaging, slogans without a vision tend to cause confusion- and in that case, ended in tiers.
True leadership is about identifying and focusing on the next mountain top, and continually lifting your team up. Confused messaging gets in the way of that.
A lack of vision results in a vacuum filled with distractions:
There is a biblical quote that says “without vision, the people will perish”. For teams though, and especially in Boris’ case, it could be rewritten to be “without vision, the people will bicker”.
More than three decades of experience, and of observing world-class teams, has shown us that when teams do not have a vision they are moving towards, they get consumed by small, often irrelevant, distractions.
In many situations, a lack of vision also creates a vacuum, which is usually where the phrase ‘lame duck leadership’ then begins to appear.
The same can be said for Boris too. In the space where the vision should have been, the process of governing- from civil service challenges to internal political challenges following by-election losses, filled the vacuum and caused distractions.
What could Boris have done differently, and what can leaders learn from his downfall?
While it is easy to say that Boris could have avoided the parties or a number of the own goals he scored, his real failure- and what ultimately led to his downfall- was the lack of vision for the second half of his term.
By not having that clear vision for people- his government and the public as a whole- to rally around, his leadership was consumed by the controversies which eventually forced his resignation.
Vision, and as we have highlighted previously, the communication of that vision, are both key for building world-class teams- whether that is in business or in government.
It is essential if your business is scaling though, because you want to build a world-class team to support those scaling ambitions.
Our founder Neil, and our team, have over thirty years of experience in executive development, and have worked with more than 6,760 business owners to unlock the potential within their teams.
In our experience, effective communication will save you 27% of your time– the equivalent to almost 1.5 days each week- and that is the subject of our next complimentary workshop.
To find out how we can help you save 27% of your time with effective communication, click here and book your ticket now.
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