Although the case lives on and discussion is always “in-session,” the voting for the July Leadership Development Round Table Challenge is now closed. Dan McCarthy of Great Leadership, was the leading vote earner, in a closely contested and well debated case. Congratulations to Dan!
The July Challenge focused on a scenario I’ve seen described in the business press as the Brilliant-Problem Child. Many of us know this character…someone with remarkable skills and ability to create value, while at the same time creating significant tension or stress in the workplace. When coaching and developmental approaches don’t take, the situation becomes a bit more challenging for the manager who must navigate the dilemma, while the stakeholders watch and wait.
Issues of team, culture, workplace environment, peer pressure, ethics, values, creativity all come into play. It’s also not missed by many that we often celebrate these characters and excuse their behaviors when they are iconic organization leaders, and tend to want to exorcise them when the same approaches are evidenced somewhere below the top.
I’ve used a variant of my Brilliant Problem-Child case in many different settings, and one thing I can predict is that the approach on how to handle it will breed not only disagreement, but, sometimes fairly vocal disagreement. Our reader commenters did not disappoint, serving up some of the best developed comments/approaches I’ve yet encountered in the leadership blogosphere. The fact that a good number of them took issue with the Round table Member approaches, made the exchange of ideas all the richer for everyone involved.
If you missed it, feel free to visit the original post, check out Dan’s winning answer and the great input from other commenters. And of course, it’s never to late to share your own ideas on how to handle our Brilliant Problem Child.
And stay tuned, because the August challenge is just around the corner.