Rob was in British Columbia when the news of Elliot Spitzer resigning the governorship of New York broke. The local paper, The Vancouver Globe and Mail, published an article on March 12th, “Why Good Leaders Do Dumb Things.” The writer made an interesting point:
“Leaders can tend to fall in the ditch when they surround themselves with people who bow down to power and never question them. This builds a mystique inside the leaders’ heads that they are somehow omnipotent.”
The higher up you go in your leadership career the more your management development depends on surrounding yourself with people who will challenge you.
Seek out the opinions of people that you know think differently than you do. Be prepared for this to be hard. You will hear things that you are not used to hearing; “That’s a terrible idea,” “That’s fine as far as it goes, but what about this issue that you appear to be completely missing.”
We encourage you to welcome this dissent and debate. Without it you run the risk of going terribly off course.
To your continued success,
Rob Linn and Rich Ottaviano
Visit our site by clicking here, management training and leadership skills, to learn more.
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1 comment:
It is some inherent weakness in the character build up of these so-called leaders which has them surrounding themselves with spineless, self-seeking yes-men. Naturally then, they hear only their own praises and start believing in their own 'greatness' and 'invulnerability'. From there a fall into any unethical and immoral misadventure is hugely predictable.
-- Kanan Jaswal.
Please visit my blog - Leadership Demystified [URL:http://leadership-demystified.blogspot.com
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