Captains of industry are rarely suited to politics

BUSINESS leaders don't make for good political leaders. It is a feature of the very different styles of leadership each need.

BUSINESS leaders don't make for good political leaders. It is a feature of the very different styles of leadership each profession requires.

Business leaders are used to being able to make largely unilateral decisions. It is symptomatic of a hierarchical system that gives chief executives enormous sway over the direction of the companies they run. There is oversight, of course -- boards fulfil that role, as to a certain extent do human resource departments. But the buck in business undoubtedly stops with the CEO.

It is one of the reasons they are so handsomely remunerated for the jobs they do.

In politics, a leader needs to take responsibility for the success and failure of their party, not unlike the CEO of a company. But the approach needed when running a political party is diametrically opposed to the approach to running a business.

Political leaders must build consensus, and they are always accountable to their back benches (after all, the back bench votes a leader into the position).

Australian National University political scientist Wayne Errington notes: "We have this image of political leaders as great decision makers, but risk takers are not usually successful in politics. Even leaders like John Howard, who liked to have a public image as strong and forthright, spent a lot of time behind the scenes building consensus."

All this begs the question: why do political parties, in particular the Liberal Party, try so hard to attract people from the business community into politics? When you look at the failed attempts in recent decades to usher successful business leaders into politics, it suggests the star-candidate tag they often get in preselections should be done away with.

The most obvious example of a successful business person moving into politics is Malcolm Turnbull.

Few would disagree that his style of leadership has hardly endeared him to his back bench in recent months.

Not used to the consensus style of leadership required in modern politics, the Opposition Leader has struggled with the fact he is not able to assert himself on the federal Liberal Party in a way he did on

the various businesses he successfully ran before entering parliament.

The Liberal Party, always in search of a messiah to lead it out of the political wilderness, has a record of looking to business leaders to become political leaders. The result is usually failure.

In the 1980s, Victorian businessman John Elliott was touted as a potential parliamentary leader, except he wasn't even able to finesse his way into a parliamentary seat, let alone the leadership.

Other successful business people to enter parliament on the Liberal side include John Hewson, Julian Beale, Geoff Prosser and Ian McLachlan. None lived up to expectations.

The Labor Party tends to draw much of its political talent from the union movement rather than the business community.

For all the flak the ALP cops for installing "union hacks' in its parliamentary ranks, a union official's background is more suited to a political career than a background from business.

The reason is simple: a union official is elected, by the members they represent, and has more direct contact with employees (the equivalent of constituents) than does the business executive.

It is a closer fit to political representation.

The argument that business leaders don't make for good political leaders should not be seen as an attack on the importance of political leaders taking a business-like approach to much of their job, especially when in government.

In state politics in particular, it is important for a political leader to run a lean, efficient, and economical government.

Lessons from business can be valuable in this respect.

But political parties inevitably drift into opposition at some point in the electoral cycle.

Good administrators may do a competent job running a government department as a minister, but in opposition they aren't always the best people to engage in the battle of ideas and the philosophical introspection in which a newly minted opposition needs to partake.

Julie Bishop is a classic example of this -- a good managing partner of a major law firm before entering politics and a competent enough minister in the Howard government, she is now a poorly performing opposition spokesperson and deputy leader.

There is so much more to being a politician than the administration of government -- dealing with political colleagues, the community and the media are central to a successful political career.

Business leaders don't have the skills or the training to excel in these areas, generally speaking.