1) Balance newcomers and experience - Just like in sports, if you have a lineup full of rookies... no matter how talented they are, once you are in the big leagues, you are gonna make some pretty horrible rookie mistakes and the old pro's are gonna make you look pretty silly. For so long the Conservative party has been the opposition... the "easy" role... but now that they are the party in power, they suddenly look pretty "dumb" themselves. It seems its not so much stupidity or lack of character/honesty, as much as it is not understanding how being "the one" under the microscope 24/7 in everything makes things different.
Obviously former Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier made some mistakes... but this is not the only "how stupid can you be?" activity that has happened amongst Harper cabinet ministers or senior staff. Yesterday there was also a press secretary who reportedly spoke to quickly about the PM's conversation with the Italian PM in regards to the caveats in their involvement with NATO in Afghanistan... and then had to retract the "private conversation report" to the media. And there were previous blunders in the past months that one knows are simply "rookie mistakes."
Its an especially tough challenge for Harper to surround himself with a mix of "experienced" personnel because the Conservative party has been out of power for so long. But to have so many rookie mistakes... and at a time when you are trying to prove your capability to lead so that they can hopefully get a majority gov't in a future election...yikes!
On Sunday May 25, CBC analysts brought out the next two "critiques" (not that I very often find CBC analysts to be very insightful but... they were on these two points)
2) Balance "political astuteness" with talent - the CBC analysts pointed out that in trying to make sure that there was a cabinet member, esp with a significant portfolio, from key areas where the Conservative gov't has lacked support... namely Quebec and Ontario... Harper appointed people to key cabinet posts that had average "talent." He could have appointed a number of Western Canadian MPs to key posts... people Harper probably knew more closely and were more aligned with his perspectives and were more familiar with working with him... and yet this was deemed to be a poor and unwise choice politically. However, in appointing ministers based on geographic/regional alignment, some suggest Harper has not appointed the most talented MPs and thus, in a way, he has created some of these nightmares for himself. The CBC analysts also mentioned the lack of women in significant cabinet posts.
In an era when political correctness seems at times to be the decisive factor in decisions, it was interesting to hear a negative critique of this strategic manuevering. Personally, I believe it is vitally important for a government or any organization to have diversity (of gender, race, and geographic background) on a leadership team. One must be very intentional in order to accomplish this and most of our North American "selection" systems work against us bringing diverse people into our organizations. Yet at the same time, the Harper governments experiences remind us that diversity is not and should not be an antonym for "quality." If you have a choice in an organization to select an excellent person or a good person, you choose the excellent individual. And if you have the choice between an excellent man and an excellent woman or an excellent Caucasian and an excellent First Nations person, select the excellent person that gives your organization diversity.
3) Balance "organizational mission" with individuality - Harper has been fairly consistently criticized for his centralization of power... and yet he does not strike me as a power-hungry man. The negative view of this is that "everyone has to tow the party line." Or to put it positively, the government wants to communicate one, consistent message. In leadership language, we want to focus on the mission or "speak with one voice." Yet rightly or wrongly, when an organization tries to centralize the message too much, it comes out as one power-hungry, controlling individual and a bunch of his/her little robots or "yes people." While being mission focused is important, it should never be so important that people lose their individuality or that a person feels or is treated as insignificant.
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