Adding Context to Roger Smith's chapter in Wren
In chapter 59 of Wren's text, The Leader's Companion, Roger Smith's speech titled Talent and Training for Leadership is given. While the chapter makes a number of good points and if one had never worked for General Motors during Smith's tenure one would think that this was written by a good leader; however, this is not the case.
First, my guess is that this speech was more likely written for Mr. Smith. Second, I find it extremely ironic that Roger Smith talks about "people issues" being one of the key issues for a business leader of the 1990's given my experience as a GM employee during his reign as Chairman. The reason I say this is because Mr. Smith was a poor leader and his actions and policies have significantly contributed to the difficulties that GM and the spin-offs have had and are still experinencing. To illustrate the point that he was not a true leader I still clearly remember the day that the memo was posted back in the early '80s not too long after he took over GM. I can still see the memo pinned on the bulletin board with the top part announcing how bad business was and so everyone was going to have their vacation time immediately cut in half and all raises were frozen while the section at the bottom stated how iit was important that we keep our executive "talent" so the incentive compensation formula was being changed so that they even though business was getting worse and the revenue going down the executives would be getting more money. And the memo waa signed by Roger Smith. Consequently, I hope one can see why I view this chapter in Wren that is attributed to Roger Smith as being ironic. To me the lesson here is that leadership is more than saying what sounds good, leadership is something you live and breath and demonstrate by your example in all the things that you do.