Competition as a leadership strategy
February 18, 2006 by admin
I used to have a boss who very much believed in the principles of divide and conquer.
In our organisation we had 4 managers who reported directly to him. He deliberately fostered a sense of rivalry between us, to the point that all 4 managers became reluctant to communicate with each other and share information and ideas.
My boss used to use the tactic of comparing your results (always unfavourably) with another manager, and infer that you weren’t doing as well. Later I discovered that he used the same tactic on each of us to some degree.
My initial response was to try harder, and so I suppose you could say his strategy worked in the short term.
Longer term though, he in effect held each manager back, he robbed us of the ability to work together and learn from each other.
The lesson I learned from my old boss, is that yes some rivalry/competition can be a powerful motivator but too much can set a team back light years.
Got any examples of competition gone too far?