The honeymoon's over for Australia's new leadership

By Alex Manchester, Editor, The Internal Comms Hub (Australia), Melcrum

I often think about how governments, their leaders and their cabinets are analogous to large private sector companies, CEOs and boards of directors. It's my own version of counting sheep. The US Government is usually the main one for me - plenty to contemplate there, after all. If a CEO behaved like the current president and his administration then, well... Enron springs to mind as a reasonable comparison.

However, from an insomniac's perspective, it's been intriguing to watch the recent series of events that has seen new Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, come zooming back to earth and landing with an ear-splitting crash.

In the last fortnight it's become boldly apparent to the Australian public that Kevin Rudd and his government are:
a) powerless when it comes to oil prices (there was a pre-election promise to keep them down);
b) impotent in affecting interest rates; and
c) last, but definitely not least, appear just as trustworthy and transparent as their predecessors - i.e., not very.

For a public bored of and disgusted with the Howard Government and "wanting a change" (UK readers will have heard that expression before), this harsh reality has come as a bit of a shock and it's meant Rudd's time in the positive spotlight has been pitifully short.

This weekend just gone even his "workaholic-in-chief" attitude is being panned, with the mainstream media saying Rudd should slow down or he'll make himself ill, not to mention mess up more things than he fixes. Ross Gittins, an SMH columnist, is particularly scathing:

"He seems to regard this [long hours] as a virtue, somehow believing he has a mandate to be Workaholic-in-Chief. In reality it's a vice, though one he and his people won't be able to sustain.

Paradoxically, it's a sign of indiscipline - an inability to set priorities and to focus on a single issue for long. Maybe he's our first prime minister with attention deficit disorder.

I think it's starting to show in the quality of the Government's decisions. The budget would have been a lot better had it had more prime ministerial attention. And the Government wouldn't have wasted all of last week wrestling in the gutter with its populist opponents had it been thinking more clearly.

I've suspected since the time he pinched the Liberals' tax cuts in the election campaign that Rudd is strong on short-term tactics but weak on long-term strategy."

In relation to the Private/Public sector comparison there was further news about how dramatic battles in this supposedly fresh-faced cabinet have meant a 50% churn in staff including six diary secretaries in as many months.

"Those sort of turnover rates are considered evidence of a a seriously dysfunctional organisation and management in the private sector" says communications consultant and political commentator, Trevor Cook.

If there's one point to draw from all this it's that leadership and change take time, vision and consistency of effort to be successful, not to mention the odd risk. Yet, a CEO will usually get several chances and opportunities to be successful, and refine and improve their strategies. A prime minister generally just has the one tenure, albeit usually for a longer period.

With widespread criticism and wholesale staff changes (although we've yet to see the first actual cabinet casualty) Rudd has clearly had a bit of a rude awakening, and his early strategies are being exposed as lacking in experience, vision and any real differentiators from his predecessor.

Six months in, are the wheels coming off or, is there just a big shakeup happening as the foundations for greater change are built? Time will tell, and I wonder if or how long it will be before the Australian "shareholders" call for his head.

Comments

[Anonymous]

Exactly what does this political rant have to do with communications?

I found this column offensive and inappropriate.

[Alex Manchester]

Hi Anonymous,

Sincere apologies if this caused offense, that was not its purpose. The bulk of criticisms and viewpoints mentioned within are not mine and it was also certainly not meant to be a political rant, merely an observation and reflection on massive media coverage of Australia's new Prime Minister and Government.

We've previously covered and referred to this since Kevin Rudd took office and it's proving an intriguing example of new leadership, including elements of walking the talk, staff churn, disenchantment, ethics, strategies etc. all things which are relevant from a communications perspective - be it internal or external.

Alex