Seize Your Leadership Day: Bad Leadership

There is a dangerous assumption out there that ‘leaders’ are chuck full of positive traits and on the side of the angels, but I’m here to tell you that it ain’t necessarily so. Just as leaders come in all shapes, colors and sizes they come with a wide variety of traits, not all of them positive. But it seems as if succession is tough all over.

Italian police have caught the Sicilian Mafia’s number two, the latest in a string of top-level arrests that has given the crime group that once terrified Italy problems with rebuilding its leadership.

The hero CEO who will save the company easily morphs into the imperial CEO. An intelligent, thoughtful opinion piece by Ho Kwon Ping in Singapore considers the dangers of this happening and assumes it will continue in the US—and it probably will.

The leadership of any company is critical to the success of its mission — but no one individual is mission-critical.

Yesterday I wrote Real Leaders are Fair, which means applying rules equally, but that rarely happens, especially when a government is involved and ours is no different. Consider the non-application of a federal law backed by a presidential proclamation that prohibits corrupt foreign officials and their families from receiving American visas. But business interests always seem to trump fairness.

“Of course it’s because of oil,” said John Bennett, the United States ambassador to Equatorial Guinea from 1991 to 1994, adding that Washington has turned a blind eye to the Obiangs’ corruption and repression because of its dependence on the country for natural resources. He noted that officials of Zimbabwe are barred from the United States.

Finally, on a lighter note, I found the answer given by Ask the Coach to this question to be classic.

Q: I am having a difficult time leading my team. The team members will not follow my instructions, which I am sure would make our project much more successful. What am I doing wrong?

A: What you’re doing wrong is very simple: you have simply forgotten that your team is more critical to the success of your project than you are.

Take a moment and read the whole post, I guarantee you’ll like what you learn.

And if you want more of my picks you’ll find them here.

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Image credit: nono farahshila on flickr