Company failures blamed on leadership

three-day annual conference held at the Troutbeck Resort in Nyanga.
This year’s theme was “Managing in an Age of Turbulence”.
Dr Ruturi said in all organisations, senior management was in charge of the recruitment of employees and also has the responsibility of determining the direction that the company should take.
“Organisations fail because of poor leadership. They recruit the subordinates who work in their organisations. They direct how the organisation goes.
“They should not blame their subordinates if things go wrong because it is them who have failed to guide the employees,” he added.
He said high-performing organisations have high-performing leaders.
These leaders, he said, communicate and cultivate trust in their employees, who in turn work hard and do their best in everything they do.
Dr Ruturi added that major anomalies have taken place between the years 1997 and 2009. He said after this period there has been relative stability, but said there was room for improvement.
“Zimbabwe needs managers that have capacity to discover new growth opportunities. The rate of business failures is much higher than that of new ones being opened. People need to come up with new ideas.
“Whatever we do everyday we are changing. Life is made up of a series of discontinuities. Linear thinkers have no place in a turbulent environment. Change is inevitable to maintain continuity. We need to move from terra firma to terra incognito,” he added.
Dr Ruturi quoted famous Greek philosopher Marcus Arelius who said “do not act as if you have a thousand years to live” “We have one life to live so live it out loud,” he added.
He said to be able to re-invent or re-create the future; managers must operate on the fringes of lunacy. He added that they must also think the unthinkable, operate outside the box and create new contexts.
“We have to learn to survive in the local environment. The leaders and winners of tomorrow will deal proactively with the chaos of today. They will look at the chaos per se as the source of market advantage and not as a problem to be gotten around,” he added.
Dr Ruturi pointed out that Zimbabwe was hit with sanctions but the nation managed to pull through and businesses continued to operate.
“We need turnaround managers to bring back positive productivity. There is no inherent limitation on human ability to comprehend reality in its entirety. Organisations must also be prepared to venture out and do things they are not always doing,” he said.
The conference was attended by over 200 people.