“Advantage” Solves the 12 Dangers of Leadership
You’ve been wronged, manipulated, or cheated by someone with position or power. Leaders shade the truth, compromise their values, and abuse authority. Just read the news.
When the path is demanding, shortcuts feel inviting. (The leaders path is always demanding.)
12 dangers of leadership:
- Navigating confidence and humility. Feeling superior or inferior corrodes influence.
- Mismanaging emotion. Outbursts erode respect.
- Neglecting physical health and spiritual well-being.
- Extending revenge rather than forgiveness.
- Personalizing success or failure. You aren’t your failures or successes.
- Easing up and letting down. Leading is pursuit.
- Disconnecting with people who do the work, isolation.
- Pushing through when it’s time to adapt. Persistence borders stubbornness.
- Showing favoritism to friends, supporters, or people you like.
- Driving criticism and dissent underground.
- Ignoring office politics. All organizations are political.
- Advantaging yourself while disadvantaging others.
(Inspired by a Facebook contributors)
If you want to succeed, make life better for others.
One solution to 12 dangers:
Commit to advantage others.
Advantage colors everything you do. The question is who receives the advantage and at what expense.
Leaders face perilous intersections where choices hover between advantaging self over advantaging others. Successful leaders deliver advantage to organizations, teammates, and customers. Self-serving leaders, on the other hand, disadvantage others.
Perspective:
Short-term perspectives invite you to advantage yourself over others.
Delivering advantage to others may feel dangerous because in the short-term it feels disadvantageous. However, you don’t have to harm yourself to advantage others.
The only way to advantage yourself, over the long-term, is to advantage others.
Every abuse of leadership comes down to seeking personal advantage at the expense of others. If you want to succeed as a leader, keep whispering, “How can I advantage others?”
The more advantage you bring, the fewer dangers you face.
What dangers do leaders encounter? (From a personal point of view)
How does advantaging others answer the 12 dangers of leadership?
Great list Dan.
#1) Feelings of superiority are one thing. Insecure people in leadership can do a lot of damage. If threatened, insecure people go to great lengths to protect themselves at the expense of others.
#3) Seems UNIVERSAL for most people these days! Trying to juggle all aspects of life and finding the time to get it all done. It is rare for people to be able to stay in balance. (it seems)
#9) I see this one a ton, especially on the internet. Granted, we all naturally gravitate towards certain people and find our groups etc. However, in leadership the danger is when leaders start patting each other on the back and IGNORE the impact they have on other people.
When the leadership peer group is giving kudos for the ‘message well SAID’, they may not realize just how often that’s all it is…well SAID rather then well DONE. And the average person may not be experiencing much of it being demonstrated in behavior when interacting with certain leaders.
Now, more then ever, it’s important to stay grounded to ‘reality’ and not blinded by peer groups in leadership. In reality, it’s not what the peer groups say that counts because they aren’t directly impacted by a persons leadership. Everyone ELSE is…
Example: Members of congress can pat themselves on the back and consider themselves trustworthy. Does their own kudos and belief make it so? What do ‘we the people’ think about it? Might be a very different story…One that may not be heard if they are blinded by all the pats on each others backs from the those who are part of the same silo groups.
As for advantage… it takes a truly humble person who is a genuine servant leader to be able to extend advantage to others when they have more power. Because generally, when someone HAS that kind of advantage, that’s when many people feel they no longer have to work for others. That’s where the danger is.
Great list of dangers Dan. One every honest leader would do well to consider on a regular basis.
Thanks Samantha. I was reading your comment and came to ” it takes a truly humble person who is a genuine servant leader to be able to extend advantage to others when they have more power.” — That one really kicks it.
That’s why it’s so important to have accountability buddies. We all need at least one honest soul who will speak the truth in love. And we all need to feel confident knowing trust is there and the other person has our best interests at heart.
When those pieces aren’t in place, defense mechanisms remain high because people are trying to defend from attacks rather then letting down guards enough to allow honest feedback.
Do you feel that leaders are arrogant to a certain point? I feel that in order to be successful you do need some kind of arrogance. But not too much of it.
Thanks Thomas. We need enough ego to believe we can make a difference but not so much that we believe we can do it alone.
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
– President Lincoln.
Truth.
Thanks Mike.
Dan, I;m so glad I found your blog. I’ve really enjoyed your posts over the past week. I was particularly struck by danger #1. Having recently assumed greater responsibility within my organization that confidence navigation has proven challenging (http://leadwintent.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/confidence/). I do find that taking my attention off myself – and finding ways to be of service to others is a pretty reliable path. Thanks for your insight and wisdom!
Thanks Vicki. What I notice about your comment is the term “responsibility.” You could have used the term position, authority, or power. The view that leadership is responsibility not privilege changes everything.
Our greatest power, is the decision to serve, and serve, and serve, regardless of the response and/or recognition…in fact, our power grows as we continue to serve without positive reinforcement or recognition…but in the face of (seemingly) adversity.
insightful Brian .. thank you
Thanks Brian. Powerful and challenging! The resolve to serve regardless of recognition points us to authentic leadership that is driven from within, not without. In this sense, leadership is all about us.
Thanks for writing this. Leadership is a difficult topography to navigate. Thanks for giving folks the tools.
Thanks for the good word walk… Lets enjoy the journey.
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
Lao Tzu
Thanks Dan. I feel the need for humility. 🙂
7: Disconnecting with people who do the work, isolation.
This is something I see all too often. Even if you as the leader cannot do the work yourself (you might not have the technical specialism, for example) you MUST know what is involved. The what and the how must be things you understand. If you don’t, you lose on multiple levels.
You send the message that it isn’t important. Based on this, first you lose the confidence of your subordinates (if you don’t think it matters, why will they), then you lose the confidence of your superors as you cannot articulate to them why it’s important, why you need specific resources and so support your staff. Finally you can’t accurately tell a customer what you can do, why it costs what it costs and why they should get YOU to do it rather than A.N. Other company.
You let down your subordinates, your superiors, your customers and yourself. Stay connected!
Thanks Mitch. I enjoyed your comment. We “send the message that it isn’t important” when we don’t stay in touch with the people who actually do the work. Powerful.
I would agree with the issue with favoritism, I know when I first became a leader I fell victim to that. I choose to follow the recommendations of someone I liked personally without considering the best option from another person on my team. We need to consider all the options on the table and not just listen to those we might like or enjoy more.