Leadersharks are killing Leadership
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As well as leadersheep there are also leadersharks out there. Do you have any experience of working with leadersharks? Feel free to post your comments on the blog. Thanks!
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9 comments
Great analogy Steven!
I know a few leadersharks but probably I also become one once and a while. I just have to keep on working on that…
Thank you for reminding me that.
Steven Sonsino reply on June 2nd, 2008 10:24 am:
Hugo, you’re right - sometimes we become our own worst enemies. Awareness is half the battle and the strength to believe that we can do things differently, with respect for our colleagues and peers.
But I can’t believe you were ever a leadershark… nah!
This is a great topic. I am looking forward to your research that could give some pointers to co-habitat with Leadersharks and avoid being a leadersheep (or atleast that perception). What would be interesting to see how to balance one’s relationship when sandwiched between a leadershark and a leadersheep.
Overall, your thoughts make us aware of the blindspots and I guess thats a good beginning for us.
Steven Sonsino reply on June 2nd, 2008 10:22 am:
Hay Prabhas - what a painful idea - being sandwiched between a leadersheep and a leadershark… ugh.
But you’re right - there is a third category coming. As the Australian painter Rolf Harris might say “Can you guess what it is yet?”
Steven, I love this “play on words”. And thank you for providing us with an easy way to tell our colleagues that they are sharks or sheets…
Steven Sonsino reply on June 2nd, 2008 10:21 am:
Hi Kerstin - I appreciate your observation about the play on words. I figure that sometimes we may be able to ’say the unsayable’ to others through the words we use. Especially if we’re playful and helpful. Feedback should be more about helping folks change or get better in the future. What the great US coach Marshall Goldsmith calls ‘feedforward’ rather than feedback.
But the most important thing I think - and the reason I made these short playful videos, is that perhaps the humour gets through OUR OWN barriers and hits home to us in a way that more direct feedback may not.
And they may raise a chuckle, too.
This hit home.
Its the ‘Great Whites’ that worry me most. Every organisation has a few, and I’ve had the misfortune to work for some. They are usually in very senior positions and whilst they ‘get a result’ because they are big, mean and ugly, their predatory behaviour leaves considerable human damage in their wake for lesser fish to deal with. I look forward to reading your research on Carcharodon behavioural modification.
Steven Sonsino reply on June 2nd, 2008 3:42 pm:
Andy, this is something that we haven’t honestly dealt with in leadership training and development. And we should.
You know what really is frightening? While the great white sharks are usually lauded to the skies because they can make waves in the short term (usually by slashing costs), no one seems to remember that it’s EASY to cut costs. (1) Stop all investments (2) cut all training (3) slash expendable people (usually the ones with the knowledge and all the experience) (4) squeeze the remaining employee’s salaries and (5) cut supplier margins to the bone.
The really difficult thing is to ADD value and on this score the leadersharks fail radically in my view.
What I find astonishing (constantly) is that when the leadersharks are thrown out - and they almost always are thrown out - we look back and ask why did we put up with it for so long? I think it’s down to our inherent conditioning to listen to the folks who shout the loudest.
Just read any of the ‘bosses from hell’ articles in Fortune or Forbes and you’ll read about people we thought were great but who weren’t. ‘Chainsaw’ Al Dunlap springs to mind.
Unfortunately standing up to the sharks is not easy - they made their names by chewing people up and spitting them out. This can cost you your leadership career.
My colleague Rob Goffee at London Business School says ‘Conform enough to survive, be different enough to succeed.’
I say choose your fights wisely. But - at the least - be prepared to fight.
Thanks for dropping by, hope all is well…
andy reply on June 3rd, 2008 9:47 am:
You are right Steven, ultimately the Great Whites always destroy value, but perhaps there is an interesting debate to be had on how far “leadership” styles such as this are driven by the short-termism of the financial markets. If leadership is dead who killed it? In a situation where the Olympians in the City are perpetually focussed on short-term gains, are Great Whites an inevitable evolutionary consequence? Do we get the leaders we deserve?
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