GraceKennedy

Leadership Styles

The annual Awards Banquet of H. Macaulay Orrett (Insurance) Ltd. was held in mid1979
and Carlton Alexander was the main speaker. His remarks were reported in the
Grace News:

Mr. Alexander said that Grace, Kennedy had always believed in keeping a low profile,
but the decision had recently been taken by the Board that Grace should now speak about
its own achievements. The Company, he said, was now going to tell the public what we
are doing and achieving and he hoped that the story would be well received.

Indeed, only eight months before, it had been suggested in a newspaper article that most
people's impression of Grace, Kennedy & Co., Ltd was of 'A confusing mass, with the
emphasis of food'. But whatever the measure of ignorance or uncertainty about the
activities of the Company, there would have been very few of those attentive to the public
media who remained unaware of the importance of Carlton Alexander. Private and public
circumstances had altered much since the days of Dr. John J. Grace.

Dr. Grace had come to Jamaica to carry on and then to acquire, with Fred William
Kennedy, the small local branch of the international Grace, Ltd. A non-Jamaican, he
chose to remain here for many years. Gradually, he relinquished active management of
Grace, Kennedy & Co., Ltd. and then, in the 1940s, determined to sell out and depart. He
was in some degree moved to this by the social and political upheava ls, which began in
the late 1930s. In the 1940s, Norman Washington Manley pressed for political
independence and social reconstruction:

.... if you look a little below the surface you will find that the emphasis on political
democracy has been designed largely to conceal from people the fact that there can be no
democracy without an economic democracy - a democracy in the actuality of the life of
all the people of the world. Democracy in a real sense must mean socialism. For its is that
alone that accepts the right of the common man to equality of opportunity in all spheres
of life.

The advocacy of 'socialism' - however defined - and the anti-imperialist stance of the left-
wing members of the PNP stirred anxiety in the minds of established, well-to-do owners
of landed property or business. Dr. Grace may well have considered that by leaving
Jamaica he would lose little beyond the enjoyment of a declining local comfort and
security. His deeper and more important commitments lay elsewhere.

For his successor, Luis Fred Kennedy, the circumstances were very different. A
Jamaican, now the majority shareholder and Governing Director of a growing business
founded by his father in association with Dr. Grace, his commitments were here. His
main concerns, beyond his family, his Church, and his old school, St. George's College,
were for the protection and expansion of Grace, Kennedy & Co., Ltd. Again to quote
Carlton Alexander, Luis Fred Kennedy was:

.... a bold and fearless leader with imagination, courage, dexterity, commitment, and an
abounding loyalty to business practices and to the free enterprise system.

He was, in short, the complete businessman. His antagonisms were directed against those
persons or agencies seemingly obstructive to his business. He challenged, from time to
time, all kinds at all levels: Alexander Bustamante, the Food Controller, the Trade
Controller, his colleagues in the Chamber of Commerce, the Governor, the Port
Authority, and, with equal vigour, his rivals in business. Hard working and competitive,
he disliked intensely any sort of controls inhibiting commerce; but, to continue in Mr.
Alexander's words, he was a 'private person'. He might find himself, temporarily, in the
limelight, but he was not drawn to it either by predilection or any perceived responsibility
to be there.

By the 1970s, Luis Fred Kennedy and James Moss-Solomon had yielded the front-line
position to Carlton Alexander, their long-time protégé. There is a story that an employee
in the Grace, Kennedy & Co., Ltd. head office in the twilight years of Luis Fred
Kennedy's regime one-day asked a colleague. 'Who is that old man who comes in late
every morning and goes off before us? He must fancy he is Mr. Kennedy.' To which the
colleague replied, 'Are you serious? That is Mr. Kennedy'.

The 1970s were hard years for Jamaica. Our wide open economy, heavily dependent on
imports of manufactured goods of all kinds and certain basic foodstuffs, felt the effects of
international economic instability in 1973. Bank of Jamaica officials spoke of 'greater
strains and pressures than at any time in recent years'. In the same year, following the
Arab-Israeli war, oil prices escalated enormously and remained high even after
production recovered. The recently elected PNP Government had quickly introduced
large and expensive programmes intended to improve conditions and reduce the gap
between the economic 'haves' and have-nots'. The cost of those programmes became
increasingly onerous as more and more revenue had to be spent on goods and service
from abroad. Moreover, though many of the new programmes were splendid in
conception, they suffered from lack of proper managerial control and accountability.

Despite the strengthening of foreign exchange controls and the institution of import
quotas, licences and prohibitions in the seventies, the balance of payments continued to
deteriorate. Emphasis was given to the encouragement of greater use of local products;
but this was as an unfamiliar call on a population long accustomed to exhortations to
produce for export so that Jamaica might continue to import necessities.

As scarcities and hardships increased, so did political party rivalry, exacerbated by the
deliberate shift in the foreign policy of the PNP. The whole course of Jamaican life since
the nineteenth century had been influenced by increasingly close relationships with North
America, and, in particular, with the United States. The rapid development of transport
and the communications media had brought American goods, American music, and
American lifestyles into the awareness of Jamaicans, both urban and rural.