Bruce Cotterill

Are leaders rewarded for profile, not performance?

I was reminded this week of the story of Jill Barad.

Barad was the rather glamorous chief executive of Mattel Inc in the 1990s who took well-deserved credit for the resurgence of the Barbie brand. But the last few years of her time in the corner office were marred by poor performance and failed initiatives. She was eventually let go in what was one of the first big corporate firings of the 20th century, in January 2000.

Her departure brought varying comments and criticisms, most notably for the size of her severance payment. Even by today’s standards some 25 years later, the US$50 million ($87m in today’s money) she walked away with seems like a colossal amount for a CEO whose performance led to her departure.

At the time I called it “failing your way to financial success”.

My recollection of Barad was prompted by the announcement that our former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has joined the highly regarded Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government World Leaders Circle. It follows her appointment a couple of years ago as a leadership fellow at Harvard University. We’re told the World Leaders Circle pioneers research to improve governance and that it is spearheaded by an international network of former heads of government.

It seems ironic to me that the person who some regard as our worst Prime Minister, and who led what some would say the worst government in our lifetimes, now travels the globe collecting admiration and appointments from the world’s top universities and adulation from the global elite.

The announcement of her appointment made much of the fact that Ardern would be joining former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the university’s Leaders Circle.