Restraining the Imperious Executive

Netflix’s self-inflicted harm came from failure to take stakeholder concerns seriously. In the tone and content they seemed not to care about customers’ reactions, not even to have anticipated the anger. The communications—directed to millions of customers—seemed to have been dashed off on the spot, without consideration of alternative ways to engage customers, to write from the point of view of customers.

Leaders are particularly prone to seeing the world from the perspective of their own organization, and to fail to consider—or to dismiss as irrelevant—the concerns of stakeholders. This is an occupational hazard that needs to be acknowledged and managed. The Wall Street Journal’s “Business World” columnist Holman Jenkins gave such advice to his readers, when he admonished: