leadership – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

Biggest threat to Robinson is that there is nobody left who can say to him, ‘don’t do that’

Mick Fealty on September 29, 2014, 9:41 am

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Still image grab from Peter Robinson talking before DUP's 2011 Assembly Election launch

Cathy Gormley Heenan (author of Political Leadership and the Northern Ireland Peace Process) and columnist Newton Emerson on last Thursday’s The View with some useful insights into last week’s controversy over the DUP’s wobble… …a long term threat to Peter Robinson’s leadership is that there is nobody left who can say to him, ‘don’t do that’, he has surrounded himself, apparently with terrified yes men who won’t prevent him from making these ridiculous media performances. He’s done himself more damage …

“Lesson One. Never, ever, agree to take over from a legend. Someone is bound to end up disappointed.”

Mick Fealty on April 23, 2014, 10:58 am

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So Manchester United let go their decent man manager David Moyes after just ten months in the job. And with him goes the myth that somehow United where above the petty desperation that has infected other Premiership clubs (he’s the tenth to lose his job this season). Like the idea that the club was founded on a base of home grown players, the generous time of grace Alex Ferguson had was rooted in the past and a completely different league …

First lesson in how to be successful? Resist the urge to be agreeable…

Mick Fealty on February 19, 2014, 4:55 pm

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Here’s Chris Dillow’s thumbnail guide to being successful. 1. Don’t be nice. 2. Be irrationally overconfident. 3. Be a narcissist. (“despite the fact that narcissistic bosses do no better a job on average than others – and might even be positively dangerous“) 4. Be a psychopath. (“charm, fearlessness and a lack of empathy or moral code are useful for career success”) Now, to be clear, Chris is not talking about politics here. He’s talking about leadership in commerce. In particular those big institutions which dominate the commercial …

#Mandela: “The role of the leader is to understand the anxieties of his people and do something about it.”

Mick Fealty on December 10, 2013, 4:52 pm

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David McWilliams on how the Mandela deal worked for South Africa… When I asked him how the whole thing was working and whether there was any truth in the whites’ suggestion that the blacks were particularly tolerant even after everything that had occurred during white rule, he grinned and said: “They pretend it never happened and we pretend to forgive them.” These sentiments could have come directly from that other brilliant hero to South Africans, Mahatma Gandhi, who memorably said …

Robinson’s land ‘remarks’ part of a general decline in tone and substance in Northern Irish politics

Mick Fealty on September 25, 2013, 1:25 pm

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If Peter Robinson thought he was snuffing out incessant criticism from that turbulent preacher from the unionist back benches, Jim Allister, he was surely misguided. Not least in his follow up remarks in a point of order to the effect that: …it was “particularly sad that a member of the family wanted to buy the land and was turned down because the family decided to sell it to a republican”. Two major aspects come immediately to mind: One, his partners …

Successful McKinney co-option suggests the SDLP leader is slowly getting a grip…

Mick Fealty on September 13, 2013, 7:34 am

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In a time of crisis, you have to do small things well. Much of the SDLP’s decline (which has been slower and gentler than that of the UUP), was marked by doing some small things really badly. The leader, in this case, got his man in, again it has to be said. That’s not necessarily easy for party like the SDLP to pull off. There’s no politbureau, no central intelligence office which constantly grades candidates and has the heft to order …

Has the new media revolution changed anything about the way we do politics?

Mick Fealty on August 14, 2013, 10:08 am

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FitzJamesHorse has some provocative thoughts on politics and the internet – not to mention the continuing ridicule of Loyalism. He comes to the ‘sage’ conclusion (again) that bloggers don’t matter. But Facebook and Twitter and YouTube do, he says. Actually, these are all, in whichever form, micro blogging platforms. In all cases, the primacy of conversation and the capacity to network information and comment are the main shifts from older ‘one to one’ or ‘one to many’ forms of communication. Has the …

In our still conflicted society, what does ‘leadership’ really mean?

Mick Fealty on August 1, 2013, 10:48 am

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All I can say is get yourself a copy of the Irish News today, and read Newton Emerson. I won’t try to parse or quote or paraphrase his arguments (since I cannot link directly to the piece online), but they raise the issue of what political leadership really means. Is it issuing a press release condemning attacks on the other side? Or looking for robust common standards that allow individuals in broader society to pursue their own political, cultural and …

“…how many of our leaders could be described as inspirational?”

Mick Fealty on July 19, 2013, 9:27 am

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I’m off for a long weekend of domestic and musical bliss (though I am taking the radio with me to listen to the Ulster Final at 4pm this Sunday)… But I cannot go without this sharing usefully uplifting quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry via Paul McFadden’s blog post concerning the qualities of leadership: “The way to get people to build a ship is not to teach them carpentry, assign them tasks and give them schedules to meet; but to inspire …

What you might do with a Stormont Opposition (1): First, build a Fence?

Mick Fealty on April 2, 2013, 11:56 am

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I have some problems with the kind of demogogic simplification Dan Hodges is talking about here, but it demonstrates a line of Machiavellian thinking that is almost completely missing from Northern Irish politics these days. The parties in power don’t need to resort to it since their potential opponents are junior partners (mudguards in Dublin parlance). In the process he nails what’s been bugging me about Labour under Milliband E for months now: Ed Miliband loves hard thinking. He also …

UUP: A party with less and less visible means of political support…

Mick Fealty on October 2, 2012, 11:22 am

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Fairly brutal says Basil McCrea. But John McCallister is gone as Deputy leader of the UUP. Why? For making this speech to the Young Unionists on the future of Unionism at the weekend. Nesbitt loyalists grumble that McCallister (Nesbitt’s defeated rival in the recent leadership election) was doing little more than laying out his alternative vision for the party. Odd when you think he’s supposed to be Deputy leader. Picking a fight over Nesbitt’s call for Unionist unity was presumably …

“….some senior Conservatives are privately starting to wonder…”

Mick Fealty on April 16, 2012, 3:44 pm

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In case you missed it over the weekend, James Kirkup has done some digging into the workings of No 10 and finds that one of Cameron’s failings is that he’s just not political enough (for his many critics): Because Mr Cameron’s team is not regularly involved (meddling, some would say) in the daily work of departments, potentially controversial policies can sometimes catch it unawares. Hence the development of a personalised “app” for Mr Cameron’s iPad that will allow him to …

Is the SDLP now ready to take a bet on its own future?

Mick Fealty on November 6, 2011, 9:27 am

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Given some of the product of the SDLP leadership contest (most notable perhaps in Patsy McGlone’s contribution) seems to be about shifting the engagement process (rather than defining new policy), this speech by Micheal Martin to Fianna Fail’s Youth Conference in Cork this afternoon is worth noting, since it tricks out something of that party’s approach to coming back in from the cold: To achieve renewal this must be a party that is totally open to new people, new ideas …

SDLP go to the polls this weekend – a look at the voting process as Attwood becomes the bookies’ favourite #sdlp11

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 2, 2011, 10:00 am

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Margaret Ritchie SDLP leadership campaign promotional balloon - Let's Make History

SDLP delegates go to the poll this weekend to select a new leader to succeed Margaret Ritchie. Party HQ will be busy selecting suitable triumphant music for the winner to enter the hall to on Saturday evening around 5pm. This morning, Paddy Power lists the odds 11/8 Alex Attwood 7/4 Patsy McGlone 3/1 Conal McDevitt (though Paddy Power spell his name incorrectly) 6/1 Alasdair McDonnell Votes will be physically cast at this weekend’s conference. Each branch has one voting delegate …

SDLP leadership readers’ survey: McGlone leads with good show from McDevitt…

Mick Fealty on September 26, 2011, 4:35 pm

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Okay, as has been said several times, this online survey, and was just for fun… So why do it (I hear FitzJamesHorse calling out from the group of troublesome boys at the back of the comment zone)? Well, it’s a sampling exercise… Not a sample of the electorate, but the rough opinion of the online readership of Slugger O’Toole… It should be noted that there is a substantial urban and in particular a Belfast bias to our readership (which may …

McDevitt registering a friendly base within the SDLP?

Mick Fealty on September 15, 2011, 1:08 pm

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Ken Reid notes that the nominations for leader of the SDLP close tomorrow. And it seems Conall McDevitt may be contemplating something, if not an official move then signalling the beginnings of a power base within the party… The South Belfast MLA is keeping his cards close to his chest but my information is five and probably six branches are prepared to nominate him. It could be quite a battle before the leadership election at the party conference in Belfast in …

What’s required is a Leader to bring about SDLP unity, not Irish unity…

Mick Fealty on September 10, 2011, 8:54 am

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Ian Parsley’s been doing some quietly impressive analysis pieces on the sidelines of NI politics. His latest piece is on what (and it’s easy to forget) has only just become the SDLP’s leadership campaign: Firstly, as discussed on this blog earlier in the week, Irish unity is not about to happen and people know it. The SDLP’s constitutional stance is clear, but it is also largely irrelevant unless is can be given extra meaning (in the same way the Alliance …

Rumbles in the SDLP over November’s leadership election…

Mick Fealty on July 27, 2011, 7:47 pm

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Margaret Ritchie SDLP leadership campaign promotional poster - with the ink running in the Newcastle rain

Patsy McGlone has been keeping his counsel to himself ever since ever since he was overlooked for the one Ministerial post open to them, but the SDLP’s deputy leader was not happy at being overlooked. Now the BBC is reporting speculation that Mr McGlone may declare his candidacy as early as next month. Given his main rivals in Mid Ulster are all Sinn Fein and all have some formal status (DFM Martin McGuinness, Agriculture Minister, Michelle O’Neill, and the Speaker …

Robinson: Softer, wiser, and stronger…

Mick Fealty on May 18, 2011, 12:26 pm

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Lindy McDowell has never been any fan of the DUP, but… At the time I remember describing Peter Robinson as a lame duck leader. His electoral humbling by Alliance’s Naomi Long seemed to bear that out. I suggested that if the UUP were to get their act together (they didn’t; no surprises there) they would capitalise on DUP difficulties. But the moment passed and then a strange, unforeseen thing happened. Peter Robinson began to show his human side. Maybe he always …

PUP to debate cutting paramilitary ties this evening (Update – and didn’t)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on September 29, 2010, 2:00 pm

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Councillor John Kyle (PUP)

In today’s Belfast Telegraph, Brian Rowen previews tonight’s meeting of the PUP. Dawn Purvis resigned as leader and member of the PUP in the immediate aftermath of Shankill loyalist Bobby Moffett’s murder in May – “a public execution sanctioned by [UVF] paramilitary leaders”. Dr John Kyle stepped in as interim leader, a bit like a pilot with the aim of stabilising the damaged PUP aeroplane and bringing it down to land in a controlled way at the Harbour Airport, ensuring …