Chapter 2
What's Wrong with Leadership Today?
During the 2012 U.S. presidential race, the Republican Party attempted to paint a picture of Barack Obama as an ineffective leader who let down the American people. It did this in part by using the metaphor of an empty chair leader. Then The New Yorker picked up on the metaphor and ran a cover showing Republican candidate Mitt Romney at a presidential debate standing next to an empty chair. The cover struck a nerve with readers. E-mails flowed in. Some readers were outraged, believing the image to be disrespectful to the office of the president. Others were strongly supportive, believing it was time to call out poor leadership.
What was particularly telling about this cover was the strong reaction that readers of The New Yorker had to the metaphor of empty chair leadership. In fact, I believe it is a common human response. We all react viscerally when our leaders don't perform the way they should—when they don't fill their chairs effectively—and hold a title but don't really lead. We are filled with a sense of disappointment and even despair. In the worst cases, we become disillusioned.
We all hope to be great leaders, to be led by great leaders, and to be part of the great organizations that we collectively build. But too often, our leaders let us down. Many fail to live up to the obligations of the role. If we are honest with ourselves, we all know that stories of great leaders leading great companies act as beacons of hope, but these stories are the minority. More common are stories of empty chair leaders—those who are inept or motivated solely by personal ambition. These leaders fail to live up to their leadership accountability.
We as leaders can't ignore what is happening. Since publishing the first edition of this book, things seem to have only grown worse.
We need to work together to bring back a sense of hope about leadership. But before we can do that, we need to really understand where we are failing. We need to face the harsh reality that leadership today is still disappointing, disconnected, and disgraceful.
Leadership Is Disappointing
What made the people of Spain take to the streets in 2013 to protest their royal family? After all, the country's unemployment rate was hovering just below 30 percent at the time. The unemployment rate among young people was a whopping 57 percent. Surely Spaniards had more important things to worry about.
Actually, that economic trouble was part of the reason people were so fed up with the royal family. They appeared woefully out of touch with the realities of Spaniards' lives. In a country experiencing a prolonged depression, with a lost generation of youth, to flaunt one's riches is in bad taste. The same is true within organizations. When senior leaders appear completely out of touch with the realities of their employees, disgust sets in. The fact that the king's son-in-law apparently embezzled millions of dollars from charities that he ran only served to further fuel the fire.
You don't have to look very far to see examples of leaders who disappoint us. It could be that sense of disappointment when we read of corporate leaders who have behaved badly or bilked their companies and shareholders out of millions. It could also be that moment when you are in the voting booth during an election, looking at the slate of candidates, and asking yourself: Is this the best we can do? Sometimes it feels like we are disappointed even before we elect our politicians—even before they take office and really begin to disappoint us.
For the vast majority of us, disappointing leadership also happens in more personal ways. This has become apparent to me over and over again in my work with leaders.
A couple of years ago, in a leadership development program I was leading, a participant named Nate was struggling. He was resisting everything and didn't want to be there. Then something changed in him when he completed the Personal Leadership Timeline activity.
As participants were busy working away, I noticed that Nate was just sitting there. I assumed he was still resisting and choosing not to participate. When I approached him, however, I realized he was deep in thought. He shared with me that one of the patterns he had observed over his personal leadership timeline was that every negative experience in his career came about when he worked for a boss who was a jerk. One such boss in particular was very difficult and would routinely yell, scream, and belittle employees. Nate said he remembered how it eroded his personal sense of engagement as an employee.
Then he asked himself the question that really made him think hard about his own approach to leadership. It was his own leadership gut check question. He said, “If my team was completing this activity, where would I show up as their leader? Would they see me as a leader creating a positive experience or a demoralizing one?”
I could see now why Nate was so deep in thought. He'd just realized, for the first time, that he was probably the jerk on his employees' personal leadership timelines, and he didn't like that reality at all. At that moment, something changed in Nate. He became completely engaged in the program. He stopped resisting because he realized he didn't want to be the leader who demoralized his team and colleagues. He no longer wanted to be the leader he had become.
This is an important insight for leaders like Nate to gain, because emerging research suggests there is a price to pay if you are a jerk and a disappointing leader. An infographic in Inc. magazine recently focused on “The Real Productivity-Killer: Jerks.”1 It synthesized the findings of several studies on the real costs of lame leadership and bad bosses. For example:
- Seventy-five percent of employees report that their boss is the worst and most stressful part of their job.
- Sixty-five percent of employees would take a new boss over a pay raise.
- Fifty percent of employees who don't feel valued by their boss plan to look for another job.
- Thirty-three percent of employees with bad bosses confess to not putting in full effort.
- Twenty-nine percent took sick days when they were not ill.
Even worse, bad leaders are bad for your health. Employees who have poor relationships with their bosses are 30 percent more likely to suffer from coronary heart disease. Maybe my colleague Zinta was right after all. Her disease may well have been a function of being in that dreadful organization led by lame and bad bosses.
As leaders, we never want to hear that we are disappointing our employees. It's certainly not something I want to hear. But it's important for us to be honest with ourselves so we can stop letting everyone down.
If you learned that 38 percent of your employees were chronically poor performers, you'd be moving fast to fix the problem. Yet, a recent report released by the Institute for Policy Studies documents that 38 percent of CEOs studied (of 500) perform poorly—and little is being said or done about the problem. To be sure, some of those underperforming CEOs end up getting fired, but all too often, their companies pay massive fines or costs—or need to be bailed out. Or they simply go under.
Many of the poor performers represent some of the highest-paid CEOs in the world. And many walk away with huge severance packages after they were bailed out, booted, or busted.
Personally, I don't have an issue with CEO compensation when the individual is a strong and consistently high performer. I've worked with many of these CEOs, and I know the tremendous value they create in terms of strengthening the economy, creating jobs for thousands, and providing valuable products and services. They are not the problem. The problem lies with the CEOs who are chronicly poor performers. They tarnish the great work of the hardworking and high-performing ones.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether you're the CEO or a front-line manager. When you are a disappointment as a leader, you erode the engagement of your followers. They won't go the extra mile for you or your organization. They will never give you their full discretionary effort. Think of your own personal experience when you have worked with a disappointing leader. There's a good chance that you never gave that leader your best. In fact, there's a good chance you purposely withheld your most creative ideas, your passion, and your full discretionary effort.
As I've shared this idea with other leaders, it seems I've somehow uncovered a secret that we are all carrying: We all consciously withhold a part of ourselves when we're stuck with a boss who disappoints us. It's not how we want to behave, but it's how we are forced to behave in the face of disappointing leadership.
I believe this is the price that organizations pay when they have empty chair or mediocre leaders. Your employees come to work each day thinking: How much effort do I really want to put in today? Is my boss worth my full engagement?
This is why organizations have a chronic problem with employee engagement. Only one in five employees is ever fully engaged. Although we know that working for an admired leader is the number one nonmonetary motivator of employees, we don't seem to appreciate the impact bad leadership has on engagement. Empty chair leaders create unmotivated employees. The employee experience is a function of the quality of the leadership experience. As a leader, you need to understand the price your organization pays for having disappointing leadership.
Leadership Is Disconnected
I talk to many leaders in my work, and many tell me they feel like they are working in isolation. As leaders, they feel disconnected from employees, peers, and colleagues. They are trying to do their best, but they don't feel supported and don't have a real sense of community with their fellow leaders. A survey of 83 CEOs at public and private companies found that half reported feeling a sense of isolation that could hinder their ability to carry out their jobs effectively.2 The survey also found that first-time CEOs were particularly vulnerable: 70 percent of them reported feeling lonely in their roles.
Although this research focused on CEOs, I believe this experience is more widespread. It's not just lonely at the top. It's lonely throughout all leadership ranks.
We should acknowledge that leadership roles by their nature do impose a sense of separation. Leaders need to do difficult things at times. They need to hold poor performers accountable, make decisions to close down companies, and fire people. Even when these actions are necessary, they serve to distance leaders and cut them off from others. That's a reality. We should also acknowledge that in large organizations, leaders often don't know one another. They're so busy that they rarely have time to connect and build relationships.
But I believe that our leadership experience doesn't have to be so isolating. We certainly don't obtain the best from our leaders this way.
Consider the story of Simon, a young product manager who worked in a pharmaceutical company. Simon was smart, well liked, and very good at his job. As soon as the senior leaders noticed him, they promoted him. Suddenly, Simon was responsible for the company's most successful and profitable product.
For a while, things went really well. Simon excelled in his new role. For about a year and a half, sales and market share were strong. Simon became the golden boy. He was held up as a model of what other employees should aspire to become. Other product managers were measured against him. He received a lot of positive attention and adulation.
Then the trouble started. A competitor launched a new product at a dramatically discounted price. It surprised everyone; the market in that therapeutic area had changed overnight. Simon was now under a lot of pressure to come up with a response. No matter what he tried, nothing seemed to help. He started to feel isolated and unsupported. He was no longer the golden boy. He quickly realized he wasn't being invited to the same meetings any longer. He was purposely being cut off. He knew it, and so did everyone else.
Unfortunately, Simon wasn't able to come up with a solution that worked. Market share took a significant hit; six months later, Simon was fired. The company believed that Simon had failed it. And to some extent, it was right: He did fail to meet that unexpected challenge.
Simon also failed because he began to believe all the hype that was being generated about him. He quickly went from hero to zero. But I also believe that the company failed Simon. Management was mesmerized by its new star, but it failed to support him when he needed it the most. Maybe it promoted him too quickly. Maybe it focused too much on the short-term results he was getting and didn't bother to show him how to translate his initial success into a sustainable long-term plan. Simon failed because he was isolated and unsupported.
Leadership Is Disgraceful
The International Federation of Football Association (or FIFA as its commonly referred to) is the world's governing body of soccer (or football, depending on where you are in the world). In 2015, the organization experienced a scandal. Many executive members and senior officials of the organization began to fall, like soccer players faking injuries on the field, as they faced multiple arrests and criminal charges for corruption. Sepp Blatter, the beleaguered president, had no place to hide and finally had to resign his post.
By the time he resigned, Interpol had already issued warrants for multiple FIFA officials on corruption, racketeering, and conspiracy charges. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was also formally investigating Blatter.
It was clear that FIFA, as an organization, was rotten to the core.
From a leadership perspective, Blatter's long and checkered 17-year history with FIFA makes for an interesting study in ego, uncontrolled power, and greed. As does his initial refusal to step down as president when senior members of his team were being arrested. Even when he finally decided to quit, Blatter maintained he was stepping down only because the football community had lost faith in him, not because he was involved in the corruption.
“FIFA needs profound restructuring,” Blatter said in his speech. “I decided to stand again to be elected because I was convinced it was the best option for football. Although the members of FIFA gave me a new mandate, this mandate does not seem to be supported by everyone in the world.”
Only on his way out did he claim to have recognized the organization that he led needed restructuring. Could he really have been leading an organization that was rotten to the core and not have noticed?
And what if he had? Even then, his story is still one of failed leadership. How could a leader not know about the money, influence peddling, and rampant greed at the root of FIFA's extensive corruption?
It's not just FIFA. Leadership today has become disgraceful. You don't have to look very far to see that many leaders have lost their way. It's all over the front page: Enron, Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis, and the Libor scandal. Corruption is everywhere. And many of the leaders at the center of these stories often seem to walk away free and clear—with big severance packages. How is this possible?
Our leaders have let us down. Employee trust and confidence in senior leadership, organizations, and boards of directors have been in a steady decline. The most pessimistic survey results show that only 7 percent of employees have confidence that the senior leaders in their organizations are looking out for their best interests.3
In fact, every time I start working with a new client, I ask to see the most recent employee engagement survey. I then find the one question that asks about employee trust and confidence in senior leadership. I know that if the percentage is low, I immediately have a sense of the state of that organization. Low trust in senior leadership has a price.
Scandals can weaken the entire leadership culture of a company. We recently launched a large leadership development initiative with an organization. Weeks before the pilot program began, the company came under fire for a financial scandal.
When we were kicking off the pilot session, the corporate scandal quickly became the elephant in the room topic. It wasn't long before we realized we had to discuss it with those leaders. They needed the forum to express their personal views on those events. What we found was that the leaders felt a deep-seated anger over the events.
Many of the participants admitted they were embarrassed to work for the company now. Others were devastated because they were once so proud to be part of that company and now felt empty inside. Another group of leaders felt a real sense of resentment because they feared that the scandal negatively tainted the reputation of all the company's leaders. They were already seeing a change in relationships with customers and vendors. Trust was eroded.
When stories of corporate scandal break out in the media, the attention is often on the bad leaders involved or the damaged reputation of the company. Few stories dig deeper to understand the impact on other leaders and employees. What I learned from this organization is that a scandal can rock the culture of an organization to its core. It affects all employees in significant ways. In fact, there is new research to suggest that the impact is far more significant than previously thought.
In a paper published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers Takuya Sawaoka and Benoît Monin of Stanford University report that the personal reputations of good and ethical leaders are in fact damaged in companies embroiled in corruption or a scandal. The researchers call this the “moral spillover” effect.
What it means is that if you happen to find yourself in a company experiencing a major scandal, there is a high probability that your own personal reputation will be marred, even if you had nothing to do with the wrongdoing. The researchers go on to say that not only are personal reputations damaged, but careers also can be derailed completely. It seems the negativity of being associated with a corrupt organization can linger for a long time and diminish one's chances of being hired by another firm.
I doubt that leaders engaging in bad or unethical behavior really care about the collateral damage from their actions. They certainly don't care about the personal reputations of their fellow employees. But the fact remains that when these scandals happen, all of us as leaders are tarnished. I know firsthand that the majority of CEOs with whom I have had the privilege of working take their roles seriously and lead ethically, with integrity and humility. These are the CEOs I admire. They are not the problem. But the few who act in a disgraceful manner erode the trust we need in our leaders. The public just doesn't trust its leaders anymore, and we have to do something about it. We need to collectively find our way back and restore the trust and confidence that people have in us. We have to stop making leadership a disgrace.
How Did We Get Here?
Leadership has become lame in many organizations. Many of the mid-level leaders I work with say they feel complacent in their roles because they aren't inspired by the leaders above them. Employees will say that most leaders they have worked with are average at best. And we as leaders know that being an average leader isn't good enough in today's world.
So how did we get here? There are four primary reasons for today's crisis in leadership accountability, which I will review below.
We Have Relied on the Heroic Model of Leadership
The story of Simon shared earlier in this chapter has been repeated countless times in countless organizations. At the core is a belief in the heroic model of leadership. It's a model we all know too well—the idea that one leader, usually at the top of the organization, has all the answers and can single-handedly lead the way.
This model may have occasionally worked in the past if the person was truly extraordinary, but it certainly won't work in today's complex and uncertain world. The old heroic model of leadership just isn't sustainable anymore. No one leader could possibly have all the answers—and yet we're constantly watching our leaders today, waiting for them to slip up, waiting for them to demonstrate that they, in fact, don't know everything.
Take Claudio Ranieri, the former manager of the Leicester City football (soccer) club in England. He was the darling of the football world when he led his underdog team to win the championship in 2016 for the first time ever in the team's 132-year history. Ranieri was praised as an inspirational leader. Some people started calling him “King Claudio.”
Then his second season with the club began. The team lost six of their first twelve games. In those first twelve games, they only managed to secure one point while on the road. Obviously, that's a disappointing comedown after an improbable and exhilarating victory—but is it proof that the system that worked one season doesn't work anymore?
Leicester City seemed to think so. They fired Ranieri midway through his second season despite a brilliant first year, when he couldn't repeat his miraculous performance in his second year. He was out and went from hero to zero.
If you are a senior leader, your every move, your every decision, and your every action are open to commentary, debate, and criticism. We have created a world in which you are either a hero or a zero.
However, it is important to realize that it actually is risky to put all your faith in just one individual. And this kind of constant scrutiny focused on only one leader at the top actually takes attention away from other leaders in an organization. Emerging leaders, mid-level leaders, and executives all contribute to the success of an organization, but if we focus on only the few at the top, we fail to support and grow the leaders we need for the future.
We Have Glorified Charismatic Leaders
Unfortunately, the problem is amplified because we don't just focus on a few heroes at the top; we then turn them into celebrities. Think of all those charismatic celebrity CEOs out there. We adore them. Jim Collins warned against the dangers of charismatic CEOs in his book Good to Great. Yet here we are today, still adoring them. In the process, we give them too much money and power. I'm not saying that charisma is bad, not at all. All leaders need a certain amount of it, but charisma can have a dark side too.
Author Geoffrey Nunberg, in his book Ascent of the A-Word, dubs this the “age of assholism,” because some of the world's nastiest leaders have become the most successful.4 He cites Steve Jobs as one of the most famous examples. Walter Isaacson, author of the bestselling biography Steve Jobs, describes him as a person who succeeded despite being a “colossal asshole.”
Uber Technologies CEO Travis Kalanick sought forgiveness and redemption after an online video of him arguing and berating a driver was leaked on social media. He apologized for his actions, saying he was seeking coaching to learn how to be a better leader. This was admirable for him to do. But it soon became clear that his style of leadership had permeated the culture. More fallout ensued with the resignations of key executives, as well as charges of harassment. Eventually, Kalanick had to step down. At first, many cited that Uber often hired “brilliant jerks” known to mistreat employees and didn't support their development as leaders. But in the end, they still hired the jerks and the company paid the price for it.
Ultimately, I worry that these kinds of stories confuse people. When we see these kinds of leaders being glorified as heroes, even though they are jerks, we become skeptical. You ask yourself: Is this what great leadership is about? Do I need to be a jerk to succeed as a leader? If you look at examples in the media, the answer seems to be yes. But most people I work with want to lead more positively and optimistically. And many get confused when they see jerks rewarded and celebrated to the extent that they are. This practice has to stop.
We can all acknowledge that leaders sometimes need to be harsh, because a positive approach does not always get results. Sometimes you need to hold an underperforming worker accountable. Or you need to bring a sense of urgency to a team that is not delivering. Or you are cleaning up a situation after a major screw-up. In these moments, a glimpse of your harsh side can increase motivation, improve performance, and communicate the severity of the situation. Jerks get people's attention. But there's a difference between selectively being harsh when the situation demands it and being a jerk all the time. One's a tactic; the other is a personality trait.
We Have Promoted Technical Superstars into Leadership Roles
Few leaders set out to become lame or even mediocre. However, something has happened in organizations where we've come to tolerate mediocrity from our leaders. From my work, I have found that part of the problem is that we've promoted strong technical performers into leadership roles. Think about your own career. If you're like most leaders, you were really, really good at what you did—whether it was accounting, marketing, engineering, sales, and so on. In fact, you were one of the best. You were rewarded with a promotion to your first management or leadership role. The thinking was that if you were strong technically, you would obviously be strong in a management or leadership role.
And if you are like most leaders I have talked to, you really didn't have much choice in the matter. Moving up into a leadership role was the only way you could make more money, get more prestige, or have more influence. Up was the only way forward.
But when you took the role, you quickly realized that you needed to start dealing with staff issues and important business decisions. And the longer you were in the role, the further away you were from what got you the job in the first place: the technical stuff.
So you went from being a brilliant individual contributor to being thrown into the leadership deep end without a lot of support from your organization. You needed to figure out all the personnel stuff on your own. You needed to understand how your role changed and the expectations you had to live up to. You either sank or learned to swim. But even if you figured out how to swim, you may have just kept your head above water. To cope, you then relegated the people issues to second place and focused on the more stimulating technical parts of your job. Then you became a leader in title but not in action.
Even if you realize that being a leader isn't your thing and you are tired of disappointing yourself and others, it's really difficult to stop. We haven't made it easy for leaders to put up their hands and say, “I'm not good at this. Help me find another way to add value in this company.” It takes a pretty big person to admit his or her weaknesses and give up the perks that come with a leadership role. But until we stop promoting technical stars into leadership roles and stop making it difficult for people to step down, our organizations will continue to be filled with leaders who put their passion for the technical aspects ahead of the leadership demands. In the end, they disappoint us because they don't end up truly leading.
We Have a Quick-Fix View to Developing Leaders
In her book The End of Leadership, Harvard professor Barbara Kellerman takes aim at the leadership industry and warns companies to have a “buyer beware” attitude.5 She argues that this industry hasn't made leaders more effective and ethical—it's done the opposite. She explains that the root of the problem is a set of mistaken assumptions. For one, we have always thought of leadership as being static. We have also assumed leadership is simple and something that can be easily taught and learned by the masses. And we have overemphasized an individualistic view of leadership, ignoring the context in which leaders lead and the impact it has on their effectiveness.
Furthermore, we have been too simplistic about what it really takes to develop leaders. We are always looking for a quick-fix solution to our problems. Companies jump from fad to fad in leadership development, and the leadership industry is more than ready to jump on the latest trend. In addition, in a world driven by social media, where we communicate in short blog posts and 140-character tweets, it's all too easy for leadership advice to become simplistic. We are dumbing down leadership training and trying to make it too quick and easy to become a good leader. The result is too many people in leadership roles simply don't understand what it really means to be a leader.
We Need the Leadership Development Industry to Step Up and Be Accountable
Barbara Kellerman is not the only vocal critic of the leadership development industry; so is Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In his book, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time, 6 he argues that despite the billions of dollars that companies spend on developing their leaders through training programs, inspirational keynote speeches, conferences, and coaching engagements, leadership isn't any stronger today.
A while back, I was speaking at a conference in California. Also on the agenda was Dr. Pfeffer. Being a big fan of his work, I sat in on his session.
He argued passionately and called out the leadership development industry—the one that I have called home for many years. Pfeffer argued that rather than helping to build better leaders, we had only served to make the situation worse.
Pfeffer noted that most of what the industry proclaims good leadership looks like is exactly the opposite of what leaders need to do in their organizations. Whether it's advice for leaders to be authentic, transparent, vulnerable, or emotionally intelligent, Pfeffer believes that these things are not what make leaders successful in their careers. To succeed in big organizations, you need to be ruthless and narcissistic. He then explained that part of the problem is that anyone can be a self-proclaimed leadership expert in today's world. One doesn't even need any relevant experience.
As evidence, Pfeffer shared an experience he had when he came across a list of the Top 50 leadership and management experts in a business magazine. As he skimmed the list, he quickly realized he didn't recognize many of the names. He then looked at the top 20 people and researched their backgrounds. It turns out that one had no college degree. Only five had terminal degrees in a relevant field. Two had doctorates in religion. There was little to no experience that would suggest they could advise and consult on leadership. What the top 20 had in common was that they all had written leadership books and all did a lot of public speaking.
Now I felt myself start to get a little defensive and I began to squirm in my seat. “I've written leadership books,” I thought to myself. “I've done and still do tons of speaking.” He went on sharing humorous stories. I laughed, as did the audience, but he delivered what for me was an unsettling speech. He had given me a lot to think about.
As fate would have it, a few weeks after I attended that conference I had a call from a former client. He was an unconventional public-sector leader my team and I had helped to completely overhaul the leadership culture at his organization. After that challenge, he moved to another organization, leading the municipal government of a large city. He wanted me to come in to help him “really shake things up.”
When I met him a few days later, he told me that his predecessor had brought in a high-profile leadership expert to provide leadership development training and motivational speeches. He also directly advised the senior leaders in this government.
Thanks to this expert, an extremely complicated leadership structure was put in place. Everything was top-heavy and siloed. Soon, all the leaders became obsessed with building their own empires. The culture became divisive, highly competitive, and toxic. Change was needed.
Eventually, many of the top leaders in this government were ousted and my client was brought in to turn things around. We started to work on a plan to help make that happen.
As I left that meeting, my mind immediately turned to Professor Pfeffer. This was exactly the scenario he was talking about. Now I could see clearly what happens when an organization puts its trust in someone who merely writes and speaks about leadership, but has no real experience actually leading or doing real consulting work with organizations.
His provocations got a reaction in me because I've spent my career in the leadership development industry and believe it can provide real value to organizations and their leaders. But I also acknowledge that it's an industry that attracts far too many imposters and self-proclaimed gurus.
As Pfeffer observed, it seems anyone can set up a blog, write a book, start speaking about leadership, or obtain a coaching certification over a weekend. Some of these people offer real value. Many others simply do not. They dispense advice that is trite, naïve, and at times even harmful for the intended readers.
If you work in the leadership industry as I do, it's time we hold ourselves to a higher standard. We must commit to being the best advisers we can be to our clients. It's time we step up and be accountable.
So do not let the allure of fame or being regarded as a “leadership guru” get to your head. It should never be about you; it should be about your clients and the leaders you serve.
If you are in a company and you need to bring in a leadership expert, don't get mesmerized by the aura (or in some cases the smoke and mirrors) that is presented. Do some real digging into the person's background and work experience. Ask some tough questions. How many years has this person been in the leadership industry? Does he or she have any real business experience or actually worked as a leader before telling others how to lead? Has he or she conducted research or have an academic track record in leadership development?
The costs of getting it wrong can be significant.
It's Time We Stop Settling—and Start Expecting More
When our experience of leadership is routinely disappointing, disconnected, and disgraceful, we begin to lower our expectations. The scandals make the headlines, but the deeper disappointment and even disillusionment happen every day in more mundane ways as we work with empty chair leaders who lack vision, who don't inspire, and who appear to be simply going through the motions.
The longer we live with ineffective and uninspiring leadership, the more disappointed we become. My concern is that we're only becoming increasingly numb to what is truly happening around us. When we experience the isolation of being a leader, we start feeling disconnected. Then we start checking out.
When empty chair leadership disappoints us, we lose hope and give up. We stop aspiring for great leadership from ourselves or others. We settle. As soon as this happens, we stop stepping up as leaders. We become bystanders in our organization. We show up every day and go through the motions. You may have the title of a leader, but you are not fulfilling your obligations. You may not be inspired by the leadership around you. You think to yourself, “What's the point of stepping up and trying to be a great leader?” The second you have that thought, you have lowered your expectations for yourself and others around you. Seth Godin, in his book Tribes,7 has a powerful thought. He says that settling is a malignant habit. It's a slippery slope. One day you wake up and you've become an empty chair leader.
It is time we stop settling.
It is time we start expecting more from ourselves as leaders.
It is time we start demonstrating real leadership accountability.
What does this look like? Based on my research and extensive client work, real leadership accountability is demonstrated when you:
- Take complete ownership for your entire role–both the technical, people and culture aspects of the job.
- Lead in a deliberate and decisive manner and always be clear of your obligations.
- Bring a sense of urgency to tackle tough issues when they arise which helps your organization to move forward and get stronger every single day.
In the rest of this book, we will explore these ideas and more. You will learn how fulfill the four terms of the leadership contract.