“Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time.”
—BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Over the years my work has required travel to a number of countries. I learned early on that exercise helps me get over jet lag, so if the conditions permit, I go running once I get settled into a hotel. Once, a client asked me to attend a meeting at a magnificent resort in a rural jungle area near the South China Sea. After arriving and donning my running clothes, I spoke with the concierge about the best place to jog near the hotel. She smiled and explained that there were only two options.
“Option one is the high road. This is the way you came in from the airport, and as you recall, it is very steep and hilly. There is practically no shade anywhere along the route.” The humidity from the nearby jungle was already causing me to sweat profusely, so the thought of running the hills in the hot tropical sun immediately held no appeal.
“Option two,” she continued, “is the low road. It is flat, shady, and much cooler because the trade winds blow in from the ocean.” Easy decision. As I turned to leave, she added, “. . . but on the low road you have to be very careful about the monkeys.” I watched a lot of Tarzan movies growing up and was not bothered in the slightest by a few “Cheetas” running around. But she was not finished. “These are a particularly aggressive species of monkey, who have bitten and injured a number of people. Yesterday, a golfer had to be rushed to the hospital in Kuala Lumpur.”
My only thought now was, “I really need some hill work to get ready for that hot and humid 10K race I plan to run back in the states on July 4th.”
TRAVERSING THE LOW ROAD
Most leaders undoubtedly aspire to take the high road. I certainly believe you and I want that. The hardships of the high road can be daunting, but most of the time we push through the barriers and try to do the right thing. Although I want to dwell on the positive aspirations that we share, it is important to understand how a significant number of leaders end up on the low road. Their path is instructive. As my grandmother liked to say, “Nobody’s useless. They can at least be used as a bad example.”
A crisis of tragic proportions dominates our twenty-four-hour news cycle as prominent leaders in business, government, education, healthcare, ministry, entertainment, sports, and many other fields get plastered across the headlines. Why are so many leaders taking the low road of compromised integrity, when the dangers and certain harm appear obvious to us bystanders? Why do many who reach the pinnacle of their professions risk those metaphorical monkeys who pour out of the jungle to maim their reputations as trustworthy leaders whenever they take the low road? Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, Martha Stewart, Anthony Weiner, and General David Petraeus are just a few who were bitten by their own greed or arrogance or narcissism. We ask, “How could he or she have done that? Didn’t he realize he would get caught? Why would he risk his reputation and all he has going for him? What was she thinking?”
The scale, frequency, and sheer numbers who have chosen the low road seems far greater today than ever before. A new headline arrives on our doorstep or our iPad almost every day—an increasingly familiar and sordid tale about some leader gone awry.
We wonder about stellar individuals such as Coach Joe Paterno, the 84-year-old former head football coach of Penn State who established more records than anyone in the history of collegiate football, including the most games won and the most national championships.1 Although he reported an incident to his superior, he was fired in the middle of his final season because he failed to express sufficient moral outrage over a child sex abuse scandal involving one of his assistant coaches. Many believe that Paterno was actively involved in covering up his assistant coach’s actions.2
WE DO NOT TRUST OUR LEADERS
In America confidence in leaders across the spectrum of business, politics, and religion continues to decline. Harvard’s Kennedy School publishes the National Leadership Index.3 Only the military and the medical community earned above-average confidence scores. Leaders in business, education, religion, government, the news media, and Wall Street all dwell together in the clammy cellar of below-average confidence.
The 2011 Index reveals that 77 percent of Americans believe that we have “a leadership crisis in the country.” More than three-quarters of those surveyed also believe that “unless we get better leaders, the United States will decline as a nation.” The study’s authors conclude with a sobering observation: “Americans’ unhappiness with their leaders is approaching the point where it threatens the country’s stability and coherence.” The 2012 Index showed slight improvement in the overall confidence in our leaders, although those who believe we have a leadership crisis remains quite high at 69 percent. Quite significantly, researchers pointed out that “81 percent of Americans believe the nation’s problems can be solved with effective leadership.”4
Fundamentally, we want to trust our leaders, but when our trust is betrayed, our confidence plummets. We wonder if a few more scandals involving national leaders will somehow push us to a tipping point—will any leader, no matter how effective, have the trust of followers? These failures undermine our trust and make us cynical—why follow anyone?
Could Paterno’s downfall have been a failure of courage? Was he reluctant to tip over the Penn State football empire by reporting this outrage regardless of the consequences? Paterno died a few months after the story broke, so we will likely never know Paterno’s true motives. We do know that a great American legacy lies in shambles. Paterno’s example makes clear that sometimes taking the low road is simply about not speaking up. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
LEADERSHIP IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT
Individuals who exert the disproportionate influence that automatically accompanies a leadership position play such a vital role in virtually every sector of life. The role of leadership is so critical that we must understand the essential elements of great leaders who stay the course.
Strong evidence suggests that it is incredibly difficult to sustain effective leadership over a long period, even after monumental successes.5 So many individuals of great influence rise only to fall unceremoniously from their lofty perch because of a failure of some dimension of their core, a concept we will look at in depth in the next chapter. A compromised leader diminishes his or her company’s potential, and when a leader fails, it places a company or any enterprise at risk. A failed corporate leader demoralizes his or her followers and robs shareholders of immense value.
OUR SHADOW
We must learn why seemingly good people take the low road of compromised aspirations. More important, we must learn to be aware of our own vulnerabilities for taking the low road. It is not our altruistic motives that get us off track. It is unknown darker motives that create personal havoc.
To foster our impact as a leader, I would be remiss to not acknowledge the reality that, as human beings, we have competing predispositions inside us. Any observer of human nature sees that we have a noble side that clearly seeks to serve the best interest of others. We also have a side that is self-serving. The side of us that we want to disown is called the “shadow,” about which the Austrian psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote extensively. When taken to extreme, this side possesses a dark influence that causes even a normally kind person to be cruel and uncaring. Most leaders with whom I have worked clearly manifest their more positive, noble side. On occasion, I have worked with leaders whose shadow side prevailed. The wreckage and suffering that these leaders cause are memorable and often tragic for those who work in their oppressive organizations. These leaders usually do not endure, but their legacy is often difficult to excise from the organization’s culture.
Our culture’s obsession with striving to look perfect makes us reluctant to look at our own duality—that some of our impulses are noble, while others are not so benevolent. It is not that we have yielded to our shadow, but we prefer to deny that we even have a shadow.
Maybe we acknowledge our shadow in a detached, abstract way, but to really open the door and look at our shadow side is not so easy. We might admit to having a small shadow. Even in our most glaringly candid moments we are reluctant to acknowledge that some of our inclinations are, at least, ineffective, if not dishonorable. Denial provides a safe way to sidestep our tension—or at least it seems that way. One of those craggy ancient prophets put it more tersely: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things . . .”6 We are better served to not deceive ourselves, because acknowledging our shadow lessens its unconscious power over us.
Even in our most glaringly candid moments
we are reluctant to acknowledge that some of
our inclinations are, at least, ineffective, if not
dishonorable. Denial provides a safe way to sidestep
our tension—or at least it seems that way.
If you are having trouble believing you have a shadow, download the very funny movie Liar Liar.7 Jim Carrey’s character, Fletcher Reede, is an attorney who lies all the time. He lies to his clients, his friends, and even his young son. He never keeps his commitments. His son makes a birthday wish that his father would stop lying for a day. The wish comes true, and Fletcher finds himself uncontrollably telling the truth every moment. The contortions Carrey goes through to censor what’s really inside of him are hilarious, but they also make us a bit uncomfortable. What would it would be like if we always expressed what is inside of us completely unvarnished?
In moments of gut-wrenching candor, many self-aware leaders acknowledge their shadow. Leaders who have great strengths also possess significant weaknesses, which cannot be ignored. Sadly, we, too, have the innate capacity for narcissism, arrogance, or disregard of other’s opinions and interests in favor of our own. Perceptive executives control these impulses and choose to manage their shadow’s intrusion on decisions and relationships. Others—through blindness or foolish disregard—do not. Those who are more likely to stay out of trouble constantly remind themselves of their own vulnerability.
Those who are more likely to stay out of
trouble constantly remind themselves
of their own vulnerability.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth reveals that the aspirations of our shadow side can compromise even the purest of souls. “Vaulting ambition, which o’er leaps itself/And falls on th’ other [side].”8
When we live the grayness of conflicted motives (as most of us do), we miss the clarity of the noonday sun and lose perspective about what’s right, but if and when we’re willing to put some light on our own less-admirable qualities, it becomes painfully apparent that we all have the latent potential to take the low road.
FINDING THE HIGH ROAD
I am convinced that most leaders want to stay on the high road. They began their careers with idealistic aspirations for making an impact, but, over time, power and the trappings of success erode those convictions. Choosing to take the low road is rarely a precipitous move. Rather, it is a gradual progression over time.
In an earlier book, Derailed, I documented that whenever someone falls from greatness, there are five predictable stages, which are as follows:
1. Lack of self-awareness
2. Arrogance or misguided confidence
3. Missed warning signals
4. Rationalization
5. Derailment9
In an upcoming chapter, I will draw particular attention to the fourth stage, rationalization, which sends us barreling down the low road in a hurry. Rationalization is a dark emotional incubator that nurtures “rational lies.” We lie convincingly to ourselves about our behavior and also ignore or minimize feedback from others. The arrogance and inherently self-serving message of these lies blind us to the clear warning signals of our impending doom.
By the time stage five hits, we reach the end of the line. The consequences vary widely, but it is certainly unlikely we will remain in our present role.
Well-adjusted people have this inner tension between dueling natures, but we will not dwell on our shadow. One aim of this book is to avoid, at any cost, going down the path of personal destruction like a few of the leaders mentioned earlier in this chapter. The great news is that simply acknowledging our shadow helps us to minimize its impact. We can then better focus on strengthening our core.
In the next chapter, we will learn the force that makes us most vulnerable to our darker instincts and how to mitigate its influence.