Sorry if I offended anyone. I do not intend to smear Angus Houston either. I merely made Two observations:
1. The relationship between a CEO and their Chairman is critical and its personal and it has to be a relationship of mutual respect, trust and empathy. In addition the Chairmans one job is to appoint or remove the CEO if, in their and the Boards opinion, the CEO is failing to advance the business.
The Chairman doesn't run the business.
And what do we see? Grounds for any self respecting CEO to resign, to wit, Sir Angus opening his yapper (from another prune thread on Unicoms}, I thought this was odd at the time if it is reported correctly:
The insistence of Airservices Australia chairman Angus Houston that his organisation’s fire and rescue officers will not provide the Unicom radio advice service, as their US firefighter counterparts do at many regional airports, could result in higher air ticket prices.
Regional airports such as *Ballina on the NSW north coast which want to introduce a radio service will be forced, in the absenc*e of Airservices firefighters doing so, to hire retired air traffic controllers to perform the role, charging airlines the additional costs, which they will in turn pass on to passengers.
Sir Angus’s position pits him against Mr Boyd, who said he would sponsor a board directive aimed at freeing up the range of *information that ground staff — *including, potentially, fire fighters *— can provide to pilots.
As I said in my original post: "A difference of opinion" - the Chairman does NOT intervene in the business and this is exactly what Houston appears to have done.
To put that another way, the Chairman does not have the controls, except for one, the CEO ejector seat switch.
2. As for taking a Knighthood, that makes Houston unwise. An obviously non empathetic person since he isn't in tune with 99% of the Australian population as demonstrated by Abbotts almost immediate rescinding of these awards. This sets of the "narcissist alarm bell" in my head.
3. Is Houston a good bloke? How would I know? Why would I care? I wish him well and I know of nothing to bring him, into hatred ridicule or contempt.
However when someone here tries to elevate a personage to sainthood, I say beware.
I have personally known Two "great leaders" - household names,, both AO's, who have done great things for the community - but in private life are vicious, petty arseholes. There are many others you can read about from time to time if you know what to look for.
This is not to suggest that Houston is anything other than a nice bloke, a great leader and a national treasure, but….I have learned the hard way not to trust such imagery.
To put that another way, just because Angus Houston is a great military leader, why does that make him fit to be Chairman of Airservices?