Want a Great Primer in Leadership? Work for a Bastard and Take Notes
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Performance, Professional Growth, Surviving Lousy Leaders
(And then do the opposite!)
Note from Art: I’m hoping (a bad strategy) that the popularization of the “B” word by director Quentin Tarantino and his forthcoming movie “Inglorious Basterds” (with an e?) has desensitized most of us to that harsh term and label. Apologies if I’ve offended anyone and/or drawn the wrath of your IT spam filter.
Another Note from Art: since several of my former bosses read my posts, please rest assured that none of you are the subjects of or the inspiration for this post! Really!
OK, I am serious about the topic. While I wouldn’t counsel you to seek out and work for a b@st@rd as part of your formal mentoring experience, given the ratio of these characters to good leaders in the workplace, chances are you’ll trip across one or more in your career. When you do, take in the experience as a powerful education in how not to lead.
The Public Executioner!
I still recall the moment earlier in my career when a leader who clearly reveled in leading public executions, used his power and a great command of words to humiliate an individual who had drawn his ire by asking a question about one of his policies. This was at a sales meeting, and the verbal execution continued for two days, sometimes spontaneously generating to fill dead air.
While the boss seemed to gain strength over time, the subject of his attention, a young and in my opinion, a sharp and inquisitive rep, melted into a puddle of human goo. I can’t tell you how many lessons we all drew from that experience. I literally recall vowing to never do that to another human being when it was my day to be in charge.
Most of Us Have Had Close Encounters with Lousy Leaders
I’ve long since concluded that I’m not alone in gaining some great insights on what not to do from lousy leaders. When interviewing for Practical Lessons in Leadership, we were surprised at the number of examples of miserable leaders that served as a kind of opposite inspiration for people.
The result for us in the book was a section devoted to “The Really Bad Habits of Ineffective Leaders,” where we attempted to name and describe the personas of some of these characters.
Perhaps you’ve met them:
- The All Talk, No Action Leader-loves the sound of his/her voice, babble, babble
- The Never-Make-A-Decision Leader-holds everyone hostage out of fear of being wrong.
- The Game-Playing, Fork-Tongued Boss-always screwing with you and will lie to save his hide
- The Public Humiliator-there’s more than one of these characters…they eviscerate the working environment as well as people.
- The I’m Your Best Buddy Manager-until he’s not. It’s just a matter of time.
- The Micro-Manager-not quite evil, but very destructive and debilitating
And my favorite,
- The Assassin. This one is the most dangerous. He/she plots the corporate kills with cold-hearted thoroughness, pulling the trigger and then slipping back into the office culture without being noticed. They are master politicians and manage to often stay above suspicion while plying their trade. Others know and sense it, but often the higher-ups don’t see this side of the person. Beware.
The Bottom-Line:
OK, aside from the cathartic benefits of railing at some bad leaders and bad leader archetypes, there is a point here. You can turn a truly bad and hopefully temporary experience into a positive learning situation.
At some point you won’t work for or next to this person, so pay close attention to the impact that his/her odious behaviors have on individuals, groups, overall morale and of course performance, and then silently vow never to do it that way.
When it’s your day at the head of the line, remember that vow.
Why Do Evil Leaders Flourish Inside Some Organizations?
It’s always been a mystery to me why so many arguably evil managers and leaders not only last but seem to thrive inside certain organizations.
You know the type. Hey, maybe you are one. If so, chime in. I’ve never actually heard from an evil leader that was willing to talk openly about why he is the way he is.
Evil leaders tend to fit one or more of these profiles:
- The dictator
- The assassin
- The two-faced politician (is that redundant?)
- The warlord
- The megalomaniac
- The evil genius
- The double agent
While this might sound like the cast of a great new movie, I know a few people that would agree that it looks a lot like a quorum at their senior management meeting.
Is it our nature to gravitate towards evil leadership in our pursuit of power and wealth?
I sure hope not, because I’m missing that gene.
I’ve worked in and with organizations that seem to cultivate and reward more than their fair share of villains, thugs and hoodlums masquerading as leaders. My observations as to why some environments seem to produce a bumper crop of these dysfunctional characters include:
- No visible sign of values in action—the sign might be on the wall outlining the values, but other than that, nothing. No teeth and no meaning behind those words.
- Some leaders just like to be surrounded by enforcers. One leader I encountered as a consulted tolerated a truly heinous individual because in his words, “I like to have a pitbull in the office looking out for my interests.”
- Some senior leaders enjoy the conflict. It is entertaining and it fits their Darwinian view of the world.
- Some leaders are sensory deprived—they are so preoccupied with their own issues they are truly blind to the carnage going on around them. While they hear isolated reports, they are not perceptive enough to see the patterns.
The Cures:
- If you have the chance, fire an evil leader or even a future evil leader. I actually enjoy this. Ooops, is that a sign that I might be moving to the dark side?
- Regardless of where you fit in the food chain, establish, promote and reward those that show character and reinforce proper values. Fire the others. Yep, still enjoyable.
- If you are in charge or starting up, establish clear, meaningful values from day one and build your culture and team around those values. Abstinence from evil leaders is still the best bet.
- Help the evil leader unmask himself or herself. This is not for the faint of heart or light of bank account, since you are in essence playing their game but often without the power.
- Find a new job and company, but remember to do a great job culture sensing before you sign up. You would hate to move from one evil den to another.
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If you have a good evil leader story, the readers would love to hear it. Unlike most stories, we like these to end poorly for these people. It just makes us feel like the good people have a chance.
A Remarkable Display of Lousy Leadership in the Land of Lincoln
I am one of 13 million or so people in the state of Illinois who along with another few hundred million around the country and perhaps the globe, are watching in horror and fascination at the saga unfolding around the state’s (for the moment) leader and Governor, Rod Blagojevich.
In case you’ve missed the news for the past few days because you’ve been out holiday shopping or lobbying congress to bail out your finances, the Governor was arrested on a variety of conspiracy charges, not the least of which was that he appeared to believe that he could use his appointment power for the newly vacated senate seat of President-elect Obama to secure money, jobs, money and jobs for his wife, a cabinet appointment, a 501C3 Charity to be funded by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, and so forth.
Oh yeah, if he didn’t get what he wanted, he was going to appoint himself to the vacant Senate seat, a right that is within the Governor’s power. To say that this man has a slim hold on reality is putting it mildly.
If you’ve followed this story, you’ve undoubtedly heard or read the transcripts of the wiretaps on “Hot Rod” as he has been called, indicating how he was going to use his power for gain. The profanity strewn conversations, several of which have his wife in the background joining in and strewing profanities on top of her husband’s colorful language.
Rod was also going to use his power to fire editorial members of the Chicago Tribune, block the sale of the Cubs by Sam Zell, and fill his campaign coffers for a run at the presidency in 2016. Again, slim hold on reality.
Growing up in the state of Illinois and around the city of Chicago, one gets used to rough and tumble politics. The Chicago machine is perhaps not as visible and powerful as 30 or 40 years ago, but still very much quietly in control in the City that Works.
Governors in Illinois don’t have a good track record. Rod has been charged, although he showed up for work today with his usual perfectly coiffed hair and that stupid frozen smirk on his face. Our last Governor, George Ryan, is in jail right now for corruption. As a teenager during the seventies, I remember watching as former Governor, Dan Walker, famous for having walked across Illinois, took one last jaunt, a Perp-Walk in handcuffs.
Well, we are the Land of Lincoln, so we have one great leader to our credit. Now we’re the Land of Obama, and people around the country and world are hoping that he follows in Lincoln’s very deep footsteps. If ever the U.S. needed a citizen of Illinois to stand up and do a great job, it is now. Just as long as that citizen has not held the Office of Governor.
Due process will play out. Rod will go to trial and have his day in court. Maybe he’ll go to jail…or maybe he will fade into the sunset as another leader that lost his grip on reality, forgot that leadership was not all about him and tried to grab as much as he could grab and thought that he was invincible.
Lousy leaders are great teachers. Grab a front row seat here in Illinois and get ready to feel outraged at how low a leader can go. Remember to file this chapter under “leadership approaches almost certain to earn a new orange suit.”
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