Looking in the Mirror

Mr. Mubarak's current travails are just the latest, and most spectacularly visible, manifestations of the first principle of managing change -- it starts at the top.  And it starts with a long hard look in the mirror.

Any leader facing a setback or a crisis cannot demand much of anything from subordinates until he  understands how  he contributed to creating the current situation.  The big question is often: how could I have missed the signals that we were headed in the wrong direction?

The answer to that question could be any of the following:

• Low tolerance of the delivery of bad news;
• Key skills and perspectives missing from the leadership team;
• Inability to see himself as others in the organization do, or to see the unintended impact of his actions;
• Belief that he can walk on water and can thus see farther and more clearly than anyone else;
• Emotional or even irrational investment in a strategy that's more wishful thinking than hard analysis.

We could go on....

Getting back to the Egyptian president, the people he leads surely dropped a few hints of their dissatisfaction over the past 30 years before taking to the streets and facing tear gas and bullets, rubber or otherwise. As one of those wounded in the AK-47 attack that killed his predecessor, Anwar El Sadat,  Mr. Mubarak could hardly be unaware of the ultimate price to be paid for voter unrest.

Former GE CEO Jack Welch said it best: "Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while."