HABITS OF HIGHLY UNSUCCESSFUL LEADERS
BILL MANNING
In many fire departments, in many organizations, there is a great divide between managers and workers. In most, if not all, cases, this is directly attributable to a leadership vacuum. Sick organizations have sick leadership.
We still cling to the Old World belief that leadership is a birthright, that we ascend to positions of leadership and prominence through some genetic predisposition. That is a fallacy. Leaders invent themselves. The actualization of leadership is a sublime, continuous process of self-creation. You can be a leader if you want to–but there`s no easy road to becoming a leader. It involves hard work and pain. Most important, it involves putting others and the organization before yourself.
We also cling to the erroneous belief that leadership comes with a title or rank, or that you can`t be or aren`t a leader without some formal recognition. Promotions, ceremonies, and horns do not a leader make. Only in fairy tales do external powers transform toads into princes. By the same token, Jesus was just a carpenter.
In the 1980s and `90s, we have seen a reemergent emphasis on leadership and the qualities therein. Students of organizational behavior and historians have authored numerous texts and best-sellers that define the qualities of true leadership. Herein I add some of my own perceptions to the burgeoning literature with a list of characteristics, in no particular order, that make for highly unsuccessful leaders and contribute to our organizational leadership vacuums.
1. See your leadership position as an entitlement. It was, of course, preordained by a higher power that you should sit above all others because of your vast knowledge, charm, good looks, and charisma. Because of your uncontestable superiority, your position, rather than a sacred responsibility, is a sacred right.
2. See your leadership position as a possession. You spend most of your time seeking the means to hang onto your turf by whatever politically expedient means at your disposal. (See Machiavelli.)
3. Seek conflict avoidance rather than conflict resolution. Conflict is distasteful, painful, and gets your hands dirty. It`s much better to let your minions duke it out and see who wins. That way, you won`t have to make hard decisions that could come back to haunt you later on. Besides, conflict resolution requires wisdom, fairness, and people skills, all of which are in short supply, since you`ve spent most of your time hanging onto what you`ve got.
4. Place yourself before your people. Your people are disposable; there`s only one of you.
5. Draw yes-men to your inner circle of closest advisors. The rest can go to hell. So what if it creates an “us vs. them” mentality? Most important, it creates for you a blame-shield when your decisions fail.
6. Take credit for the successes, shield yourself from the failures. See #2, 3, 4, 5. When your decisions work, they are yours; when they don`t, you were the unfortunate victim of bad advice.
7. Administer in a closed, rigid world of black-and-white rules. There is nothing that irritates you more than free-thinking, unconventional nonconformists who think in shades of grey and make a mess of your smooth-running operation. For an autocrat to rule, there must be a clean system of square pegs for square holes, a cookie-cutter management style, and an exercised system for punishing violators.
8. Seek shadows instead of the sunlight. Your weaknesses must be hidden from your minions and, most importantly, from those who rule you. Shadows obscure failure and intent and create within the organization an air of uncertainty, if not fear, which increases your stronghold of power.
9. See compliments as a sign of weakness. Complimenting your minions on a job well done could reveal how weak you would be without them.
10. Do whatever it takes to appease the big bosses. Throw what`s best for your organization out the window; what`s best for you is hanging onto your job.
11. Have short-term goals. Far-reaching strategic plans are a thing of the past. You realize that in today`s fast-paced, budget-driven world, it`s “What have you done for me lately?” A short-term focus is the only thing that will appease politicians and bean counters who themselves are short-term focused and looking to minimize their exposure to rival forces.
12. Encourage creativity only so far as it impacts your short-term goals. Read that: Don`t take risks. Creativity is a good thing so long as it fits into your short-term plan, but beyond that it upsets your power base.
13. Realize that when you finally get to the top, you can rest easy. You`ve made it by virtue of your preordained greatness! You don`t have to slug around anymore. Play out the string, play your cards right, and retire with a nice, hefty retirement plan.
14. Keep your axe sharpened at all times. You absolutely will need a sharp axe, because bad decisions require swift blame and swift resolution to your employment problem. Exile that bad decision maker to the hinterlands in Station 13, B Shift! All transgressors to your personal goals must be dealt with swiftly and efficiently.
15. Understand that the road to self-preservation is political correctness. It is a politically correct world now. You realize you must sublimate common sense, nonfavoritism, and organizational priorities. You realize that we are in fact ruled by the combined efforts of independent social activists who have purveyed and rooted their philosophies through the support of academic bastions and mass media, their true application to public safety in doubt but nevertheless necessary so that your higher-ups recognize you for the enlightened individual you are. We most certainly don`t want the ACLU on our asses; this will cost you big time.
16. Let politics win over wisdom every time. Leadership is a political game–a power game. You`re on the correct side of the fence at all times. Wise decisions can be very unpopular. You don`t let your organizational wisdom get the best of your primary goal, which is self-preservation.
17. Be reactive. No reason rocking the boat if you don`t have to. Being proactive oftentimes costs money and always pisses off the big bosses. Wait for the big incident and then do damage control. And then say the reason for that big-loss fire or that multiple-civilian-loss fire or that firefighter fatality was because prior administrations did not put the necessary controls in place.
