Attitude Reflects Leadership - Gary Bertwistle

http://talkfortyfourseminars.typepad.com/talk/2007/01/attitude_reflec.html

In the movie 'Remember the Titans' the Captain and Vice Captain of the now famous NFL football team, The Titans, are discussing their team. The Captain is disgruntled with the way the Vice Captain's team mates are contributing to the success of the team at practice. At that moment the Vice Captain looks to the Captain and says 'Attitude reflects leadership'.

 

From June 1, 1983 until June 29, 1999, I represented working people at the bargaining table and in the workplace itself. I wrote and enforced contract language, made certain that workers notified of adverse actions received fair hearings under their due process rights, and, learned when to be diplomatic and when to (figuratively) kick ass.

I sat across the table from a number of management ("leadership") types ... good guys, bad guys, mean guys, incompetent, "peter-principle" guys, fair-minded, unfair, personally secure and insecure guys. At work locations that experienced unusually large employee turnover, almost always it was ultimately attributed to management/leadership style ... either the heavy-handed, arbitrary and capricious, uneven, mean-spirited or my-way-or-the-highway style.

When administrative/management/leadership policies are enforced, if the policies themselves and/or the methods of their enforcement are poorly-conceived, unevenly applied or based on incorrect premises, guaranteed at some point a conflagration will arise; and that conflagration will often be a manifestation of the way in which "attitude reflects leadership."

In my position as point-person for the defendant, I made certain that I never entered into a hearing or an arbitration without a "paper trail" in my brief case, that is, documentary evidence. This is not to say that my client was always unjustly accused (I usually knew going in who had the "goods" and who owned the culpability). But for the sake of the sanctity of "fairness" in the process, those who leveled the charges knew I'd make them satisfy their "burden of proof."

I don't formally defend individuals or tenets any more ... I've retired from that world; but I haven't retired from addressing situations I believe to be counter-productive, arbitrary and ego-driven, particularly when I have been able to provide both rhyme and reason as to a fallacy behind the insistence on continuing to maintain such situations.

"So, what's this really about ... this article?"

That would be a fair question.

Here's my answer ...

"A word to the wise is sufficient."