Topic: Recent high profile resignations of Jacob Maroga (CEO) and Bobby Godsell (Shareholder appointed chairman of the Board) at the ESKOM (SA parastatal) have shown up a leadership circus that could have been avoided. Whilst as usual in these cases we are not privy to all the facts, media reports highlight a few consistent points around which we can examine leadership decisions. Jacob Maroga appears to have given a verbal resignation, Bobby Godsell met with President and came away with view that he did not have Presidents support. Shareholder representative - Minister of Public Enterprises Barbara Hogan kept a long silence and then came out in support of Godsell.
Some criteria: Good leadership goes beyond positional power and is often determined by the disposition to those being led. This in turn is a function of credibility, trust, respect, competence and the ability to deliver. A leader also needs to be provide with the scope to lead.
Coach’s angle: Leaders earn the right to lead by their disposition, style, relationships with organizations members and credibility. Conflict between senior leaders can quickly polarize organizations, and this in the South African context can have the added complexity of the 'race card' being bandied about without proof or fact. ESKOM is an organization that needed very strong leadership given the challenges it faces of short term delivery of a key input to the economy and all citizens quality of life, as well as the need for immediate major capital investment for additional urgently needed capacity. The whole organizations credibility is under scrutiny and the 'new' team was put in place to address these issues. A fall out of this magnitude at such a crucial point does untold damage to both the ability to get the organization back on track and the confidence of investors and public in it's inherent ability as an organization actually deliver the goods - (it also faced serious public challenge in view of a recent application of a 45% tariff increase per annum for the next 3 years).
The shareholder should be very close to the enterprise management and realize consequences of any fall out. Hard work behind the scenes should have aimed at avoiding the conflict or addressing the issues firmly without a public spat. The Chairman should have been very firm in the resignation issue and ensured that it was recorded in writing before any public announcements. The meeting with the President appears to have been concluded without a clear and unequivocal guide from the senior person as to what the position regarding the chairmans stats and support was. The Shareholder should have taken a firm position very quickly to support one or the other of the executives with reasons. The race card was fortunately dispelled quite quickly by supporting statements from National Union of Mineworkers and ANC secretary-general and allowed this red herring to be dispelled and not add to the issue.
Whilst hindsight is always an exact science - what is clear is that executives need to understand the impacts of their decisions can be far reaching and indirectly affect and thus draw in the average citizen. They need to ensure as leaders that correct procedures are followed and before making announcements are made written status is confirmed. Rapid response to issues is another trait of a good leader - silence for a week (as with Public Enterprises) can only aggravate the situation.
All in all the employees of ESKOM must be demotivated by the credibility gap created and the public are generally seeing the issue as a leadership fiasco all round. Public leaders are especially in need of good leadership skills and protocols as they all hold high profile roles and are looked at to be examples of good leaders. Many can learn a great deal from avoiding the basic mistakes made in this soap opera we have just witnessed.