Leadership Beneficiary

Currently the State of California is going through a financial crises and it is a crises that has been managed by numerous Governors. Some Governors and State Legislators have been quite skillful in managing the fiscal affairs of the State’s largest economy in America. If California were a Country on its own it would rank somewhere around sixth or seventh as amongst the most powerful economies in the world. The challenge of economic solvency is an issue the State of California has been grappling with since the property tax initiative that was voted on by the tax payers in the late 1970’s called the Jarvis initiative.

The man who introduced this initiative was Howard Jarvis and while talking about the property tax revolt at that time during one of my classes in Public Administration at the University of Southern California our professor then stated that such a measure would bankrupt the State of California. Well, here we are now some thirty years later being challenged with that accurate economic forecast by that astute professor; a projected thirty one to some thirty five billion dollars in the hole. The question arises what happen to the output fiscal leadership accountability? How and why did the situation get so out of control? Why was this not brought to our attention when we were one Billion dollar in the red versus thirty some billion dollars?

During the early eighties I served for eight years for a California Governor who was in my view California’s last great Governor. His name is George Deukmejian a man with the highest standards of integrity and who knew exactly how to manage the affairs of a fiscally complex financial State institution. He knew what he could spend and knew when to stop spending particularly; when we didn’t have the money to spend revenues we did not have. His true leadership style came through by knowing when to communicate with the people of the State of California and how to collaborate with Legislators from the opposing party by making it very clear where the line was drawn. Governor Deukmejian insisted on a one billion dollar reserve for catastrophic disasters and was outstanding at not only developing collegial relationships with the Legislature but how to apply basic common sense leadership that was understood by most.

I now ask the question who benefited from such leadership? Of course the people of the State of California but it is deeper than that; it goes to the core issues of the virtues of satisfying the people who elected him and of being committed to the principals of providing the highest in quality customer service to the people of the State of California; which by the way impacted the nation as a whole. You see, California is so large economically that whatever happens in California positively or negatively it impacts the rest of Country. The Governor surrounded himself with people that understood economic efficiency and fought hard for the ongoing growth of the State’s productivity output and was open to ideas of substitutability’s for the State’s inputs not only within California but in the State foreign affairs of export commodities to Japan, Mexico and other parts of the world. This was a Governor with a vision who knew how to collaborate with one of America’s great world figures at the time and the leader of the nation a man name Ronald Reagan, the two traits of commonality is that the two were fiscal conservatives.

When a Corporate Board appoints a CEO to run the corporation they do it with the assurance that the CEO will operate from a perspective of benefiting all stakeholders of the corporation. They expect the CEO to align themselves with the most competent skillful executives possible that will commit to the organization’s long and short term goals. They expect behaviors that will stand the test of futuristic leadership development; that will sustain the Corporation for decades as they seek investors willing to buy in on the mission of the corporation. Corporate America is as accountable for our economic crises as the public sector perhaps more by erasing from their management practices leadership based on output that will benefit everyone otherwise get out of the business.

By: Dr. Richard C. Baiz, D.B.A.

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If you would like more from Dr. Richard C. Baiz, D.B.A. on Personal and Leadership Development and his Leadership Institute click on the the link provided: www.leadershipinstituteofsuccess.comDr. Baiz is a Doctorate in Business Administration. He is a College and Corporate Personal and Leadership Development Instructor and Coach.