EDITOR’S COMMENT: I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I spent much of my formative years being a touch arrogant. I liked to call it smug, though, because it sounded a little more endearing. I was someone who thought they knew best and someone who hated admitting defeat.
But then I failed at a few things. I messed up and realised that while it may be hard to say I’m sorry, to admit you are wrong, sometimes it is necessary and absolutely the correct thing to do.
Which is why a piece by Nils Pratley in the Guardian, in which he calls out Hammerson chief executive David Atkins and his “flattering self-assessment” post the failed intu takeover, resonated.
He wrote that Atkins had just “breezed on” as if nothing had happened, as if the REIT’s shareholders had not been ready to revolt and that a strategy to reduce Hammerson’s exposure to department stores was just that, a strategy, not just the outcome of the current retail market.
It was a pretty strong critique. But it is not just Atkins that should be singled out for a bullish and, dare I say it, arrogant leadership style.
Could we also argue that Ian Hawksworth of Capital & Counties is “breezing on” with its demerger of the business? Or that Mark Dixon of IWG is doing the same, telling Starwood, Terra Firma and TDR Capital that it did not want to continue discussions regarding their possible offers a day before their formal “put up or shut up” deadline was due to expire?
Or even Landsec’s Rob Noel in calling the London market, with no apparent hedge on the strategy?
There is an argument that all of these calls are correct, of course – that this is business and in business you need a hard line, that chief executives are chief executives to make these kinds of decisions, that you need a touch of arrogance if you are going to turn a healthy profit and deliver best value to shareholders.
Warren Buffett, the undisputed greatest of all leaders, certainly has a touch of arrogance. He has made his billions by going against the grain, against what investors might think they want.
Take the Washington Post as an example. He invested heavily in the newspaper in 1973, just as the US was heading into a crisis stemming from the OPEC oil cartel and the backlash from the Vietnam War. While Wall Street went into panic mode as the Post’s share price tumbled by 25%, Buffett “breezed on” regardless.
Forty years later his original $10m investment was worth more than $1bn.
But Buffett is also humble. He openly and unashamedly admits to his failures. He admits that buying Berkshire Hathaway, a small under-performing textile mill that was about to be taken out of business by cheap Chinese manufacturing, was one of his biggest failures.
Could it be that his ability to be humble, to admit that there are some things that he does not do well or know enough about, actually enabled him to pivot that dying textile mill into one of the most successful investment firms in the world? Maybe.
Maybe an air of arrogance is best for those in positions of power. But I just can’t shake this feeling that a touch of humility might be just what is needed from leadership right now – not just in property, of course. Someone in politics admitting they’ve screwed up might be refreshing too.
I could be wrong, though.
To send feedback, e-mail Samantha.McClary@egi.co.uk or tweet @Samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
