Why Leaders Fail INTRODUCTION ARROGANCEMELODRAMAEXCESSIVE CAUTION INTRODUCTION VOLATILITY EAGERNESS...

Why Leaders FailINTRODUCTION

ARROGANCE MELODRAMA EXCESSIVE CAUTIONINTRODUCTION VOLATILITY

EAGERNESS TO PLEASE WHY LEADERS SUCCEEDPERFECTIONISM

ALOOFNESS MISCHIEVOUSNESS PASSIVE RESISTANCEHABITUAL DISTRUST ECCENTRICITY

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Why Do CEOs Fail?

• Most “failed” CEOs were strong leaders before their blunders

• The pressure for performance is shorter and more unforgiving

• Many sabotaged themselves, albeit unconsciously

• ALL leaders are vulnerable to their “shadow side”

• CEO’s downfall are more noticeable/spectacular

• Nobody told them the truth





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The 11 Derailers

•Arrogance: You’re right and everybody else is wrong.•Melodrama: You always grab the center of attention.•Volatility: Your mood swings drive business swings.•Excessive Caution: The next decision you make may be your first.•Habitual Distrust: You focus on the negatives.•Aloofness: You disengage and disconnect.•Mischievousness: Rules are made to be broken.•Eccentricity: It’s fun to be different just for the sake of it.•Passive Resistance: Your silence is misinterpreted as agreement.•Perfectionism: Get the little things right even if the big things go wrong.•Eagerness to Please: Winning the popularity contest matters most.





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Learning About Failure

Our research on derailers owes a debt to the work of:

• Robert Hogan

• Ram Charan

• Daniel Goleman





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Understanding the Way Derailers Work

• Derailers emerge under stress.

• Stress differs for each leader.

• You can’t remove your derailers—they are part of your personality.

• Derailers are both strengths and weaknesses.

• Most leaders have two or three derailers.

• Some may seem like the opposite of one another.

Why Leaders FailARROGANCE




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You’re Right and Everybody Else Is Wrong

•Arrogance is blinding belief in your own opinions.

• Success as a leader requires confidence.• Most smart leaders know when they’re

being stubborn, single-minded, and self-righteous.

• Arrogant leaders can’t see their own arrogance.





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Healthy Potential for Failure• You’re willing to fight for what you

believe in.• You’re unwilling to ever give up a

fight.

• You believe that your perspective is the correct one after evaluating other points of view.

• Your perspective is the correct one-- before evaluating others’ ideas.

• You hold yourself accountable when your strategy or idea doesn’t work.

• You refuse to take responsibility when your strategy or idea doesn’t work.

• You adjust your strongly held viewpoint to fit new information

• You reinterpret events to fit your point of view.

• You possess a powerful ego that allows you to make an impact on others.

• You possess a powerful ego that causes you to dominate others.

Why Leaders FailMELODRAMA




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You Always Grab the Center of Attention

• Successful CEOs require presence. • Sometimes, you must be dramatic to

make a point.

• Melodramatic leaders suck up the oxygen so no one else can breathe

• Melodramatic leaders don’t develop others, can’t see what is happening and always grab the focus.





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Healthy Potential for Failure• You command attention when you

speak.• You dominate meetings by

constantly talking.

• You use charisma to involve and motivate people.

• Your style grabs attention or becomes an issue.

• Your showmanship helps attract outside attention from media, analysts, and prospective recruits.

• You expect others to attend to you.

• You know exactly when to be charming or deliver an eloquent talk to achieve a goal.

• You are consistently flamboyant rather than strategically dramatic.

• You can turn off the style and listen and learn from others.

• You’re always “on” and rarely reflect.

Why Leaders FailVOLATILTY




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General Patton: Derailing by Example.





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Your Mood Shifts Are Unpredictable

• Volatility creates compliance—successful CEOs use it strategically.

• Volatile leaders create energy. • Unpredictable eruptions from powerful

people creates caution, distrust and fear. • People waste productivity energy managing

the moods of the leader.





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Healthy Potential for Failure• You lose your temper because of

major screw-ups and other significant problems.

• You explode over minor mistakes.

• Feedback tells you that your people know what they can expect from you.

• People worry about your reactions.

• You generally act one way most of the time.

• You move back and forth between optimism and pessimism.

• You consistently generate energy and enthusiasm through your words and deeds.

• You create BOTH energy and intimidation.

• You change the way you act in order to achieve a specific effect.

• Your mood swings are without provocation.

Why Leaders FailEXCESSIVE CAUTION




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The Next Decision You Make May Be Your First

• Overanalyzing important decisions in the face of increased anxiety and significant stress.

• Your fear of making the wrong decision causes procrastination and the need for “one more study.”

• Problems spiral and the very failure you sought to avoid is brought about by indecision.





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Healthy Potential for Failure• You analyze a situation before

you make a decision.• You require second and third

opinions.

• You look at worst-case scenarios before moving forward.

• You obsess about what might go wrong.

• You go slow before deciding because the wrong decision can have serious consequences.

• You go slow before deciding because every decision can have serious consequences.

• You turn down requests for projects and resources when you have hard evidence that flaws exist.

• You don’t give people the go-ahead.

Why Leaders FailHABITUAL DISTRUST




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You Focus on the Negatives

Healthy skepticism is different than virulent distrust.

• The former involves being realistic, reacting appropriately to circumstance and environment.

• The latter involves being inappropriately and egregiously suspicious.

• Distrustful leaders question motives and look for hidden agendas.





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Healthy Potential for Failure• You assess the potential

downside before making a decision.

• You don’t act because of the inevitable downside.

• You’re alert for people whose actions are motivated by politics or self-interest.

• You’re seek to confirm that people act out of self-interest or for political reasons.

• You can tolerate negative feedback and learn from it on occasion.

• You dismiss all information as tainted by an individual’s ulterior motives.

• You mix criticism with positive comments when giving feedback to direct reports.

• You’re excessively critical when giving feedback.

• You anticipate obstacles that can get in your way.

• You obsess over what can go wrong.

Why Leaders FailALOOFNESS




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You Disengage and Disconnect

• Aloof leaders “emotionally disappear”

• Conflict, especially creates withdrawal.

• Aloof leaders are distant, abstract, and sometimes disengaged, especially under stress.

• They isolate themselves during crises or retreat from people who need guidance or support





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Healthy Potential for Failure

• You create an environment where decisions are made objectively and politics is rarely played.

• You create a “cold” culture --expression of feeling is frowned upon.

• You’re calm in the midst of crisis and controversy.

• You withdraw in the midst of crisis or controversy.

• You maintain an outward reserve but can connect with people when necessary.

• You’re stoic and rarely show anyone weaknesses or vulnerabilty.

• You delegate most relationship-building activities to others but are willing to forge key alliances in crucial situations.

• You’re unable to work in teams or creative alliances.

Why Leaders FailMISCHIEVOUSNESS




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You Know That Rules Are Only Suggestions

• Mischievous leaders are easily bored, and often like to “stir things up” to create excitement.

• These leaders see “rules” as either “suggestions” or “for others to follow.”

• Mischievous leaders enjoy provocative ideas but have trouble executing these ideas.

• Mischievous leaders are charming and engaging.





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• You test limits and push at boundaries to foster innovation.

• You break the rules.

• You are impulsively creative. • You are destructively impulsive.

• You enjoy risk-taking and don’t dwell on mistakes.

• You make decisions and take risks without considering the consequences.

• You use your charm and creativity to achieve organizational goals.

• You use charm and creativity as a tool-- not to achieve specific goals.

• You make provocative statements in order to foster debate and discussion.

• You speak your mind for your own amusement or without any real objective.

Why Leaders FailECCENTRICITY




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It’s Fun to Be Different Just for the Sake of It

• Eccentrics can generate ideas and deliver results—or else others would not tolerate their weirdness.

• Eccentric leaders are often viewed as true originals, their strange behavior often spoken of with affection.

• When things aren’t going so well, however, eccentrics become irritating.

• Others have trouble predicting their behavior





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• You have a million great ideas. • You have a million great ideas that rarely get executed.

• You keep people on their toes with your unpredictable and offbeat style.

• You confuse and confound people with your style.

• You’ve launched many important initiatives.

• You’ve launched many initiatives but don’t follow up on them.

• You blend your original and sometimes unconventional style with a more conforming approach when necessary.

• You refuse to change who you are by conforming to organizational norms.

Why Leaders FailPASSIVE RESISTANCE




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Your Silence Is Misinterpreted as Agreement

• Passive-resistant look like savvy leaders, who know how to play politics and be pragmatic about goals.

• Underneath , however, is unconscious duplicity.

• Passive Resistant leaders create expectations they don’t meet, confusing and disappointing others in the short term and creating cynicism in the long run.





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• You say one thing and do another only when there’s no other option.

• Saying one thing and doing another is standard.

• People generally know what drives you.

• You have a private agenda that you share with no one.

• You try to avoid conflict but level with people when it’s crucial that they know where you’re coming from.

• You avoid conflict at all costs and rarely express any disagreement.

• You have a sense of what other people expect of you and your commitments to them.

• You don’t know or care what others expect of you.

Why Leaders FailPERFECTIONISM




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You Get the Little Things Right While the Big Things Go Wrong

• Perfectionistic leaders often ignore the big picture.

• They focus on details, and lose sight of major developments around them.

• Perfectionism is useful for anyone in a position where mistakes can be literally or figuratively fatal, but derails those with significant responsibility





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Healthy Potential for Failure• You focus on the details. • Detail focus prevents you from seeing

the bigger picture.

• You find it worthwhile to make sure that presentations look and sound great.

• You pay more attention to the form than to the substance.

• You feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.

• You try to impose structure in every situation and eliminate uncertainty and ambiguity.

• You manage processes with skill and determination.

• Managing processes trumps people’s needs.

• You are conscientious about your responsibilities.

• You can’t let go of any task, no matter how small, until it’s completed exactly.

Why Leaders FailEAGERNESS TO PLEASE




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You Want to Win Any Popularity Contest

• People often try to please leaders -- not the reverse.

• Many leaders are eager to please, -moving up because they identify and meet the needs of others.

• Pleasers can be enormously popular because of these qualities, but they can also fail because of them.

• Their aversion to conflict and contentious debate causes them to bury contrary opinions that need to be heard.





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Healthy Potential for Failure• You believe that happy workers

are good workers.• You believe that one unhappy

worker can spoil the whole company.

• The teams you create get things done through consensus.

• The teams you create stop dissenting or anxiety-raising ideas.

• You’re able to adapt to new events and circumstances.

• You’re so flexible that no one (including you) is sure where you stand on the issues.

• You confront with compassion. • You confront without backbone.

• You like to keep disagreements from disrupting meetings and the flow of work.

• You communicate that disagreement and conflict are unwelcome.

Why Leaders FailWHY LEADERS SUCCEED




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What Kind of Stress Triggers Your Derailers?

• Interactions with bosses, boards, big customers, or authority figures

• Major career or life transitions• Mergers and acquisitions• Failure of a program, team, or policy for which you are

accountable• Downsizing or restructuring• Boredom• Too much work• Intense peer competition





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What Kind of Stress Triggers Your Derailers?

• Deadlines

• Personal financial pressure

• Negative publicity

• Conflict

• Confronting underperforming direct reports

• Working in a matrix

• Dealing with paradox, complexity, uncertainty, or conflicting expectations

• Appeasing difficult customers





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Coaching Techniques

Adversity AnalysisThink of your difficult situations or failures: What behaviors in these circumstances didn’t serve you well?

• What would your worst critics say about how you acted?

• Do you see a theme or pattern in your behaviors?

• Do any of the derailers fit this pattern?





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Coaching Techniques

Direct Report EvaluationLeave your direct reports alone, and ask them to report back to you with their best ideas and recommendations about the following questions:

• How can I be a better leader?• What do I do that makes you nuts?• How do I force you to work around me rather than

with me?• When you get together to complain about me,

what do you complain about?• When I’m under stress, what do I do that you

think is counterproductive?





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Coaching Techniques

Finding a ConfidantSomeone you can trust, who understands your business context and who can provide you with objective, insightful advice, and feedback.

– Good choices:• A mentor, retired or still active, who has observed you

move up.• Someone who has experience as a coach• A former direct report whom you respect and trust

– Poor choices:• Friends or spouses • Organizational allies, because they can become

tomorrow’s competitors.





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Addressing OrganizationalLeadership Derailers

•Managing derailers helps both careers and companies.

•With their derailers under control, leaders free up their strengths.

•Coaching a leadership group has a trickle-down effect to the entire company.





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An Evolved View of Leadership

• In the past, leaders hid their weaknesses. • That’s not possible now—there are few secrets. • To handle stress, accept that you—and all

leaders—are fallible. • Flawed leaders deny they are human, but

human beings can still be great leaders. • Accepting this will free you to become aware of

your derailers—and learn to manage them. • Increased stress may be inevitable, but failure

is not.





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Based on the book Why CEOs Fail by David Dotlich & Peter Cairo

Why Leaders Fail INTRODUCTION ARROGANCEMELODRAMAEXCESSIVE CAUTION INTRODUCTION VOLATILITY EAGERNESS...

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