This week-end’s Australian Financial Review reported on some of the important things that Elisabeth Murdoch said during her recent address at the prestigious James MacTaggart Memorial lecture at the Edinburgh Festival.
The Financial review article was titled, “Big sister tells the bad news” and ” ‘Moral compass’ speech shines light for shareholders”. Elisabeth stated that “… profit without purpose was a recipe for disaster ” and “profit must be our servant not our master”. These are two statements that I wholeheartedly agree with and which I think are well worth extensive debate within business circles. From my perspective profit is an outcome and should never be the primary objective. If profit is the primary objective then everything else is expendable including employees and customers.
As Ken Blanchard says in his Foreword to my book, “.. unless people have something to serve, such as a compelling vision or worthwhile goals, the only thing they have to serve is themselves. We have seen the negative effects of self-serving leadership and behaviours in every sector of our society around the world.” Authentic leadership is required. Leader’s can’t fake this stuff. Their people will know whether they really believe the purpose they espouse and whether they really believe that employees come first and customers second.
