Let's talk about transformation, trust and style of leadership MkII

The sudden demise of Michelle Guthrie as managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a stunning illustration of how all organisations are stretched by the combined tensions of digital transformation, maintaining their position and the declining trust in just about everything.

Ms Guthrie, on paper, was well-equipped to lead the ABC to where its audiences are going - and that is away from TV and radio turned on religiously at set times.

She took the only approach available to an executive wanting to hold audience, quality and budget. She got rid of layers of management and set out to break down silos that saw many ABC people continue to identify themselves around their networks or programs rather than as part of the network.

This is hard work and will always be resisted, meaning reforming executives have to put more work into making their case for change before they can really get on with.

In the case of the ABC, the difficulty is compounded by the role the ABC has in holding up a mirror to Australian life. Sometimes we don't like what we see. While we can't always blame the mirror, we often do. And elements of the current government (supported by the ABC's media rivals) have been particularly virulent in condemning its shortcomings.

But here's a fact: there will always be shortcomings. The question is whether they are systemic or isolated. In Ms Guthrie's case she copped it from both sides - aggravated staff and aggravated politicians.

Most of my working life has been in media so I've deal with both and understand how easy it is to fall short in the pressure to find and spread the truth while meeting deadlines with limited resources. More recently, I have built on my media experience to work in areas of digital transformation. Again, I can see how easy it is to fall short as new technologies, business models and consumer behaviour change the established ways. My book on this, Wake Up - The Nine H#shtags of Digital Disruption, pinpoints these trends.

Now I'm working on a follow-up book (due out next year) which looks at the multiple factors contributing to a breakdown in trust in Australia and its institutions.

In researching this, many people talk to me about the turnover of prime ministers in recent years. In reality, this is a symptom of the distrust not a cause.

The financial services royal commission has shone a bright light on one important sector of Australian society - those we trust to handle our money. But it has been preceded by breakdowns in just about every other Australian institution, brought about partly by their failure to wake up soon enough to how technology is changing the behaviour of their participants and customers.

Which brings me back to Michelle Guthrie and the ABC and her role in an organisation with trust baked into its soul. Combine the pressures of media with the challenges of technology and the decline of trust and you have a recipe for, well, disaster.

Michelle Guthrie, like the board who are the architects of her demise, are little known to we Australians who rightly feel we own the ABC. Ironically (for a communications organisation) they have done a poor job of explaining who they are, where they want to take our ABC and how they're going to get there - all skills more essential than ever.

So, let's hear the explanation where and when we want it. That's the style of leadership we now expect and demand of all organisations. And the one that feeds our discontent when it's not met.

PostScript: The explanation is still lacking but the consequences of this style of governance have gone right to the top of the organisation. The chair, in resigning, has conceded he was an impediment to the ABC's prime asset, trust that it will not be politically manipulated.

His demand that the MD sack a journalist because she was offside with the government is without precedent in my experience of 15 years in leadership roles at big media organisations.

But there remains a question about the judgement of the board. If it knew of his action, why did it dismiss Ms Guthrie and not take immediate action against its chair? There will be more to come on this but no one (including the ABC journalists who were barracking for the demise of their former boss) is looking too flash.