Where have all the leaders gone?

Almost 35 years ago, I bought my first record, a long-playing album from ‘New Wave’ group The Stranglers called No More Heroes. At the tail-end of the depressed 1970s, this quartet was asking where had all the big personalities gone from the 1960s and earlier in the twentieth century. Were there no more heroes prepared to lay their lives on the line and act as leaders of their respective generations?

Today, in a similarly seminal decade of cultural transformation, political upheaval and economic uncertainty, we should ask where are all the leaders to take us out of the current morass?

One of them died prematurely this autumn. Apple founder Steve Jobs was “the Bill Gates for the younger generation,” says Athanasios Ladopoulos, partner and portfolio manager at Swiss Investment Managers in Zurich.

“He had a more open approach to people, through emotional intelligence,” which is not typical of most CEOs, believes Mr Ladopoulos. “He could communicate with people. It is difficult to find a leader that inspires people and it is very different to a leader who rules by fear, where people do what they are told because they fear they might lose their job.”

Yet when we look for these types of inspirational, innovative leaders in private banks – particularly when judging the recent Private Banking Awards – they appear few and far between. Ossie Grübel transformed both Credit Suisse and UBS in Zurich, but has now been ousted by those who do not share his vision.

Many of those showing the best leadership abilities are women. Citi’s private banking CEO Jane Fraser, devoted to both clients and staff and designer of a unique growth strategy, still to be proved, stands out in London. Citi has once again won the Best Global Private Bank award in an extremely tough climate.

In Asia, Su Shan Tan has made an excellent “war-time” leader at DBS. But the leadership award went to Kathryn Shih, head of Asia Pacific business at UBS. To be accepted as a leader, to inspire staff and draw up a plan is not enough. Staff need to know you will stick around long enough to follow it through and this is where many aspiring leaders fall down, as they are always seeking a new challenge and bigger pay-packet. Too many of our private banking institutions, while telling clients to invest for the long-term, have a terribly short-term horizon in terms of management structures.

During a recent trip to Ukraine, part of a series of investigations into emerging and frontier markets, the lack of leadership in the country was apparent. There are a plethora of would-be bosses, table-thumping oligarchs and people with the next big political idea. But only two of them inspire any real loyalty among staff and subjects. One of those, ex-prime minister and gas trader Yulia Tymoshenko, has been locked up for seven years by the current administration, which sees her as their key political rival.

In Greece, the talk is still about whether a “haircut” or partial default will happen, rather than how Greek society should be transformed and what happens the day after the default in terms of national strategy for growth. Communication between the Government and the financial industry is so patchy as to be totally ineffective, with no single personality to lead the rescue.

Johannes Muller, chief economist at Deutsche Bank’s investment subsidiary, DWS, believes that once Europe’s debt situation deteriorates even more, “a couple of bright guys” will rise to the leadership challenge, including Giulio Tremonti, Italian Minister of Economy and Finance, Luxembourg Prime-minister Jean-Claude Juncker and Finnish European Commisioner Olli Rehn.

Looking at the leaders of European “heavyweights” the UK, Italy, France and Germany, only German Chancellor Angela Merkel really looks like she has her eye on the job of saving the Continent. Developing our next generation of leaders will be one of the greatest challenges we face.