Antony Ladd was recently referred to me by a trusted colleague. So Antony and I got together and came to know each other a bit. He’s got a unique view of what’s going on here in the U.S. He is from the UK. As we discussed his situation, it became clear that he is a very senior executive with a great deal of operational experience. He is amused by the “deer in the headlight” look of many American business executives these days.

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I don’t know where this quotation originates; it is on a card provided by a packaging company without attribution. I love it anyway though. Of course, leadership is more than just an action, it is action from a new view of the world, not the same old actions we’ve always taken. To me, that is the very essence of leadership – finding a way to have the world occur differently to yourself and others and then taking actions to reach that new view, the new vision and mission.

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Leaders don’t fall in love with their own ideas. They do fall in love with the vision, the noble goal of the organization, but they don’t cling to their own “great ideas.” And they don’t let you fall in love with your ideas either. Why? Because when you are so committed to an idea, or view, or opinion, you aren’t open to the way things can be. It’s hard, maybe impossible to see new possibilities.

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There are many different ways of stating the premise that if you overuse a particular strength, it is soon seen by others as a fault, a weakness. My favorite way of saying it is that “your strength will become your weakness.” The point is that if you fully and only play to your strength, your strong suite, that it becomes tiresome to people, or out-dated, a solution that is no longer required. We become obsolete.

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So, it’s no fun to have made the call, but I see that Tony Hayward is in fact on his way out. He is being held accountable (not necessarily blamed, but the buck stops with him).A recent Gallop Poll showing how the “confidence” people had in various institutions means we have a very long way to go in getting folks to have faith in big business. Luckily, many still have confidence in small business. “Small businesses rate a 66% while big business gets 19% and organized labor 10%.”

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We all have companies we “love to hate.” There’s a video running around with a marine blasting an HP Printer that failed and the folks on the other end of the phone wanted to charge him for assistance (warning this guy is very angry and not using polite language).

My prime target is AT&T and without going into a long tirade, I’ll just say that I’ve not personallyexperienced more deplorable customer service at the hands of a company. I’m adding another one now though, Intuit. After deciding that the “gentle warning” on their website that the latest software was best for Windows 7, I paid my money and downloaded the QB 2010 software. That’s when it all began.

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Many years ago I heard the statement made that “corporate staff is like body fat. You have to have some in order to survive. But the goal is to have as little as possible.” I think the same is true of Government. You have to have some, but the goal is to minimize it. So I start from the premise that Governments and Businesses have the same challenge – deliver value and necessary services while keeping the nonproductive activities and costs to an absolute minimum.

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A colleague, Ira Wolfe, asked a great question over on one of the many leadership blogs we frequent. His question was, “The BP Gulf of Mexico Crisis is just gushing with leadership lessons. What do you think are the most important lessons leaders can learn from this?” I like this question and had been thinking about this very thing for weeks now. There were several responses, and I too contributed since I’d been pondering this topic anyway.

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I can’t help it. The outrage at BP over this oil spill is getting out of hand. People are complaining about things that are not at all helpful to complain about. One bright light was complaining because BP is paying for Ad Words on the major search engines so that when people type in a search phrase having to do with the oil spill, BP’s website is showing up in the paid ad section. Duh!

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A colleague was complaining that “Obama is bashing business” and it wasn’t fair. He plans on punishing those who don’t support business by “voting the %^$*#&’s out of office.” I don’t see it that way. What I see is that business owners and C-suite folks need to think about this a bit more. Here’s why. Successful politicians are successful because they READ (as opposed to LEAD) the public. Rarely will a politician last if s/he gets too far out in front of the people.

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