On Leadership and Followership

On leadership and follower-ship

Our CEO Stan is back at work, full of piss and vinegar, after a short hospitalization for an affliction that I do not wish to discuss.  (Stan keeps some Preparation H on his desk, which is small but big data.) 

Today was the first management meeting held since Stan returned, and we members of the management team thought the meeting would be jovial, as it were.

Stan, on the other hand, wanted to deliver a message about leadership and follower-ship.

I taped Stan's speech so that I could provide a "verbatim" version, as it were. Is verbatim French? Non! It's Roman.

"There is both a leadership and follower-ship issue in our firm. Issue, not problem, as Gloria aptly points out. The follower-ship problem is mainly between me and, you all, my management team. For Christ's sake, why are you not making your numbers?"

Then Stan got specific.

• Juliette Caesar, I am sick and tired of hearing about the deficiencies  in Comrade Carl's product, make you numbers, sell the product and stop whimpering. Since when is product quality an issue to Sales people?
• Comrade Carl, the product is a piece of shit, if I may say so myself. Fix the product Carl, kibinimat.
• Gloria, what is all this diversity crap? And upgrade the IT HR systems. Why can't HR be fully mechanized? The IT HR system is worse than our product. Wake up Gloria.

Then Stan ate a dark chocolate bar, drank some some root beer and continued:

"We also have a leadership problem in our company. And Comrade Carl Marks, the problem is you. 

Look at Gloria. Look how far she gets with just her raw ambition; her people work like slaves and she lives the Life of Riley, texting all day. Juliette Caesar managed to sell just 3 of your systems to Albania. 3 fucking systems Comrade Carl-that's a lot! Especially since these systems don't fucking work. And what you DO do Carl, teach you staff to swear in Russian and Arabic? Jesus. Are you out of your mind, Carl?"

Stan, whilst checking his email,  told me "I hate that fucking Canadian Blackberry Gloria; get me an I-phone 6".

Then Stan wrapped up the meeting."Gloria, I am oking 4 hours of coaching for all of us. Fix these problems in a week."