WHAT'S it called when a leader or group of leaders is trying to make a decision about policy and they receive recommendations from experts, then decide to ignore it and do what they want anyway?
Leadership isn't about knowing everything. Steve Jobs once famously said: "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do - we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do." And he's right.
Leadership is about cultivating a work environment that encourages and empowers innovation, thought, development, growth, new ideas and consolidation. It's about making people better. Business better. Community better.
However, this can be frustrating and challenging when subject matter experts don't provide the expected information and their advice turns your plans on its head.
But if the purpose is creating something that will be successful, that will improve business and people outcomes, then listening to the experts and being able to adapt your approach accordingly is vital to successful business practice.
Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but there are a number of reasons why people refuse to listen to advice against all reason.
One reason is narcissism: they believe they know everything already and cannot possibly be told what to do. Or perhaps they are in denial and thus won't be able to see the usefulness of the advice. They might lack the confidence to take the advice or the motivation, or both. Or perhaps the advice being sought is irrelevant to the achievement of the outcome because "success" is not defined on face value, but rather seeks a deeper achievement where the surface level issue is simply a means to an end.
Leaders who ignore expert advice and move ahead with damaging public policy are either self-serving or idiots. Neither option has a place at the national helm.
I think it comes down to the purpose behind your action. Are you acting for the greater good of those around you, or do you have an agenda that you are pushing regardless of its real impact on others?
Just as in business, government also witnesses this challenge to sense-making in policy. Or so it seems. With robo debt and the cashless debit card attracting negative attention from the UN - with Philip Alston (the UN's special rapporteur on extreme poverty) calling Australia's welfare policies "punitive" and "harmful" - one would be forgiven for being baffled by the government's insistence that their welfare policies are "compassionate."
Medical professionals, psychologists, social justice and welfare experts have all voiced concern over these welfare policies and yet, the reporting, the parliamentary submissions, the pleas from these qualified and experienced experts all appear to fall on deaf ears. In fact, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has expressed surprise at the backlash from these policies, but he hasn't let that stop him. Now we have the drug testing of welfare recipients before the Senate and the cashless debit card rolled out across the Northern Territory. We're also hearing the government is refusing to rule out the expansion of the robo debt scheme to age pension recipients - because it's worked so well so far. What's a class action to stop economic progress, right?
Last month, former Treasury secretary Ken Henry said: "The country faced a string of policy failings that could deprive a large proportion of people of the opportunity to work." He also drew attention to the fact there's a history of the Coalition claiming to have fixed many problems when in actual fact, the opposite is true. Just labelling something a success doesn't make it successful. Just as labelling welfare policy "compassionate" does not make it so.
Noam Chomsky famously said: "The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people." Add to that the control of protesters and the press and what we have is authoritarianism, not the liberal democracy we are told we live in.
To answer the question I opened with, leaders who ignore expert advice and move ahead with damaging public policy are either self-serving or idiots. Neither option has a place at the national helm. As Barack Obama said: "If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost."
Zoë Wundenberg is a careers consultant and un/employment advocate at impressability.com.au
