Gordon Brown is a Bad Leader

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is facing revolt as the Labour Party plunged to its lowest ever during the European elections. During this period of time, Labour members of the parliament have also criticized Brown greatly for his poor leadership skills. This is not the worst that Brown has been facing. Six senior cabinet ministers had resigned last week, and junior minister Jane Kennedy quit on Monday. The rest of the members urged Brown to step down from his position and give the Labour party a chance.

Let us take a look at how Brown failed as a leader of his party. If we were to use William Schutz’s theory of interpersonal needs within a group to judge Brown’s party, we can say that the party has failed in these regards. First of all, the affection needs have not been fulfilled. It is known that despite Alistair Darling’s loyal services to Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Brown conspicuously failed to back him up in an attempt to move an even closer ally, Ed Balls, into the job. This is not only betrayal, but also a huge failure in developing a close and caring relationship with his team member.

Due to this shameful act by the party’s leader, the group synergy started to slip downward rapidly, due to the decreasing morale and faith of the members in their leader. Other bad leadership qualities that Brown displayed were “tribalism, the refusal to admit mistakes, bouts of control freakery and indecisiveness”. (The Economist) Instead of taking up a task or maintenance role, Brown has taken up a negative role, to be precise, the role of a Special-Interest Pleader, Dominator, and Blocker. With all these negative qualities in its leader, it would be almost impossible for a group to make complex decisions. It would also be hard to gain the full support of the group. These factors indicate the downfall of the party as they are the things a group gets together to achieve in the first place.

I strongly feel that a good leader should take up both task and maintenance roles at the same time, and not a single negative role. A good leader should be an Evaluator-Critic, an Energizer, and a Coordinator. He/she should also be an Encourager, a Standard Setter, and a Group Observer. These are all the roles that Brown should have considered taking up. Perhaps he should take some leadership lessons from Mr Obama.