A recent article of April 8, 2011 named “What went wrong with Cathie Black” talks about the newly appointed New York schools chancellor Black, who was dismissed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York after her three months holding the position. The explanations of what went wrong has broadly fallen into tow camps: inexperience and personality.
To start with, I should mention that Black proved herself as being a top notch leader. Her record of success as a President of USA Today, The Newspaper Association of America and then Hearst magazines as well as her contributions on the boards of the Coca-Cola Company and IBM attest to that.
Despite of the fact that Cathie Black was quite a successful leader in business realm and was motivated to succeed in her new job, she could not fit the realm of public sector. One of the main differences in the leading government and private sectors is that leadership in government requires diplomatic skills, which leaders can often get by without in business. It is obvious from the mentioned article, that she had a lack of the required skills. Let us look inside the issue more deeply.
First of all, in her previous positions she was used to actively participate, make decisions, control the organization as a whole in a different way than she was required to do while working in public sector. Secondly, she was used to communicate differently with others, differently solving conflicts, rewarding her staff for good performance, and she was required to change her ability, skills, attitude toward the routine on a daily basis facing the problems of the NYC schools. Thirdly, probably she failed while trying to understand the culture of the local community of how people see each school's goal. Those views, the whole environment might have been different from what Black was used to. As a result, after just three months of working she was dismissed by the Mayor who appointed her to the current position and hoped she would would have been a great fit to the organization.
Tamar Khechoian.
Interesting Tamar.I was just reading about Cathie Black and the way she portrayed herself showed inexperience. There is one incident mentioned on Wikipedia that in a meeting with the parents she told the crowd "I cant speak if you're shouting" and after the crowd booed her she imitated the crowd in a mocking fashion.How ridiculous! She was criticized by everyone.
ReplyDeleteSheena
I think this is a perfect example of the big difference between the public and private sector. While Ms. Black was working for USA Today I wonder if anyone would have cared she had fired a few hundred employees, so long as she turned a pretty bottom line right? We here about big companies laying people off all the time and it's not a story. But when a few teachers are laid off? It's a disaster! As you mentioned, the public sector takes a different personality and tactfulness to be successful in. The bottom line is an afterthought to happy citizens.
ReplyDeleteChase Behrendt
This is a great example of "organization fit" of course, the organization is New York City instead of a for-profit one. Mayor Bloomberg and Cathie Black should have done much more analysis of Cathie Black's personality and leadership style before placing her into such a public position! It seems Bloomberg did learn from his mistakes after Black's resignation. The new Chancellor of Schools, Dennis Walcott, has experience on the Board of Education and as an educator. Good news for New York!
ReplyDeleteGreat article Tamar.
Kelsey Umbarger
Despite how well Cathie Black did in private organizations, leading a public school requires different personality and skills. The chancellor without related background and knowledge can not instruct teachers how to teach neither knows what student want to learn, as a result this may definitely drive into a big problem. Leaders in different climate organizations require some certain traits and skills, in order to fit themselves into a proper workplace.
ReplyDeleteYin-Chin Huang