'Business Leadership in the Ireland of Today' - President Mary McAleese
Date: 03 March 2010
President Mary McAleese delivered an address this evening entitled 'Business Leadership in the Ireland of Today' at a dinner for senior business people hosted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Institute of Directors in Ireland. The event took place at the offices of PwC at One Spencer Dock, North Wall Quay, Dublin 1.
Introducing President Mary McAleese, Rónán Murphy, Senior Partner, PwC said:
“As business leaders, we have all experienced, over the past 18 months, a period of enormous difficulty, of unprecedented challenges and of great uncertainty. While the difficulties have lessened, there is no doubt that the challenges and the uncertainty will continue for some time to come. It is exactly at a time like this, that there is a real need for Business Leadership. A leadership that will help shape a new Irish economy and will ensure we have the right environment to encourage enterprise while having appropriate checks and balances in place.
This is an opportunity this evening for us to progress the vision as to how Irish business should be led."
President Mary McAleese, in her address on Business Leadership in the Ireland of Today, said (extract below from an embargoed address by President McAleese issued earlier today):
"It has been said that leaders don’t create followers; they create more leaders. We have suffered from a culture of unquestioning followers, an altogether different phenomenon from intelligent communal solidarity and that has huge implications for the next generation of leaders and for all here this evening, for you are uniquely placed to ensure measuredness, integrity and ethics are embedded deep within our business culture and its future ambassadors. There is truth in the saying that if you want the crowd to follow you, don’t follow the crowd. Leaders have to be prepared to maintain lonely vigils, to be sole voices, to be misunderstood, to be tough enough to stand up to the second guessers, carpetbaggers, the corrupt and the armchair experts."
Thanking President Mary McAleese, Ann Riordan, President, Institute of Directors in Ireland said:
“The President has provided us with a vision which enables us to move to the next stage of the debate as to how we, as business leaders, can respond to the challenges in the Ireland of today.
The President has highlighted the key role which business leaders play in ensuring that we reinstate a strong culture of corporate governance, which is one of the essential cornerstones of successful business and will establish a sustainable future for all of us.”
Ends
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