2021 words concerning genuine leaders and fake leaders.

2021 words concerning genuine leaders and fake leaders.

Insights in this article apply to every industry including the vision care business.

Over the years, academic researchers have provided us with the knowledge to somehow identify real leaders from fake leaders. The vast gray area between a real leader and an “impostor masquerading as leader” can be reduced through some research in the literature, applying critical thinking, and digging deeper than the surface. This subject is particularly important because institutions and organizations which promote and develop true leaders are more successful in the long run and are more sustainable. Whereas organizations that fall into the trap of impostors masquerading as leaders get killed and thrown away in the trash of history. Moreover, this subject finds its purpose as a guiding light to students and those who are starting their career and are looking to be real leaders in the future; it helps them embed these relevant qualities into their thought process and organizational culture while going through their everyday tasks.

A decade ago when I was an MBA student I read an article entitled “Impostors masquerading as leaders” (Singh, 2008). It was during the “MBA510 Organizational Behavior” course at Marylhurst University and I still refer to it every day in my personal and professional life. Throughout the article, Singh (2008) highlights and answers a series of questions related to how organizations end up with “crass Impostors as leaders” in the first place and then reflects on the way we appoint people in responsible positions and functions and what qualities we seek in them as true real leaders.

How organizations end up with “crass impostors as leaders”?

The misfortune of appointing fake leaders is not caused by external factors beyond our control. It is, in fact, our fault; and we often are the cause of the lack of good real leadership that we complain of. Therefore, rather than having to act as victims we should be responsible and hold ourselves accountable in order to learn from our mistakes and make better decisions in the future.

If we cannot spot real “would-be leaders”, we put ourselves in the hands of glamorous and not worthy impostors. Those impostors go on to wreak havoc upon everything valuable entrusted to them in the institution. They then turn everything in favor of their self-serving strategy of exaggerated grandiose self-image, showoff, halo effect, hero-like image, personal ambition, nepotism, amplifying one’s achievements, clever maneuvering of facts, politicking, back-stabbing, and counting on deception in order to get ahead in their Machiavellian ways and plans.

Once we make the mistake and appoint the wrong candidate as a leader, the journey becomes increasingly downhill: “As you sow so shall you reap”. With no indebtedness of the important responsibilities involved in their position, and with the absence of a moral and noble vision for the institution under their care, they apply their myopic vision of self-interest to enrich themselves by growing on dismantling the very organization they were expected to serve, and they leave behind them a trace of destruction composed of salient misdemeanors that include:

Impostors use their role as leaders for an occasion of self-aggrandizement instead of fulfilling the job that they have been entrusted with. “Unsure of the length of their tenure, they appear to be in a hurry to ‘make hay while the sun shines’. They violate all codes, break all rules and plunder corporate resources with gay abandon” (Singh, 2008)

In order to protect their biased position, “they set colleagues upon one another” and rely on internal warfare that destroys all forms of constructive talents and disregards their motivation.

In order to protect their egocentric vision, they surround themselves with docile flatterers who are impatient to fulfill their boss’s command. While independent-minded and trustworthy experts are regarded as troublesome which leads them to pursue opportunities elsewhere and causes additional damage to the institution. So “blatant sycophancy vitiates the organizational culture until it is reduced to being an ‘echo-chamber’ where all compete with one another to be noticed as the most loyal ‘yes-men’”

In the absence of intellectual challenge and checks and balances, and driven by their over-sized ego as well, impostors start acting like demi-gods and start believing that the institution is their sole proprietary. And in order to project a “belle figure”, they falsify and exaggerate data related to the performance of the organization, they put greater emphasis on projecting their own image rather than the image of those who are working to increase the performance of the organization. (Singh, 2008)

What are the qualities of real leaders and the red flags around “crass impostors as leaders”?

Singh (2008) profiles a genuine leader as someone who has three essential, necessary, and sufficient traits: energy, expertise, and integrity.

First a real leader must have sufficient “energy” to be able to energize and drive the whole organization and all stakeholders to move and attain their purpose. Energy is required to close deals and meet deadlines in a quiet, smooth, and orderly operation.

Second, a real leader must have the required “expertise” and professional competence to transform the energy of the organization into purposeful action. It is for the same reason that expertise is required in harnessing energy for the good of the stakeholders otherwise it would be wasteful and sometimes destructive.

Third and most important, a real leader must have “integrity” to steer and manage the organization in the right direction that protects the interests of all stakeholders. Integrity is a non-negotiable value; it is about constant compliance with the organization’s values. Given the multi-dimensional nature of integrity, we can assign to it several meanings in leadership: Integrity from “A” to “O”

• (A) Integrity is synonymous with telling the truth. A real leader is transparent to people inside and outside the organizations and everyone trusts him and wants to deal with him.
• (B) Integrity implies full disclosure about the performance of the organization. A real leader does not allow misrepresentation of facts or disguising for the purpose of making things look better than what they truly are.
• (C) Integrity implies that the real leader has a consistency between what he professes and what he actually does.
• (D) Integrity implies that the real leader is credible and is trusted to honoring commitments and not making false promises.
• (E) Integrity implies that the real leader be good in interpersonal relations and that is being able to give to others what he demands from them in order to sustain relations.
• (F) Integrity implies that a real leader makes sure that credit for good work is generously allocated among the right claimants.
• (G) Integrity implies the real leader assumes responsibility when things go wrong and not find excuses to blame others.
• (H) Integrity implies the real leader displays the courage of his own convictions, shapes public opinion aligning it with his superior judgment, and not sway freely with the crosscurrents of public opinion.
• (I) Integrity implies the real leader employs the true spirit of ‘sportsmanship’ when it comes to competing to coming up the ladder of the organizational hierarchy. This means playing hard but being fair at the same time.
• (J) Integrity implies the real leader employs meritocracy when it comes to recruiting, rewarding, and promoting team members and colleagues.
• (K) Integrity implies the real leader accepts and invites all kinds of feedback, especially critics.
• (L) Integrity implies the real leader’s actions to be solely driven by the common good of all stakeholders.
• (M) Integrity implies the real leader employs fair treatment in all transactions among internal and external stakeholders.
• (N) Integrity implies the real leader presents his immense strength through humility and invests it in giving to others in particular to those in lower ranks.
• (O) Integrity implies the real leader presents selflessness and suppresses his own interests to that of the common good.

In order to function efficiently, energy, expertise, and integrity leadership qualities have to be synchronized and must complement each other. For this reason, we must elect a leader who presents a balance between these three qualities and be guarded against the leader who reveals a weakness in any of the three.

Therefore:

An expert who lacks energy will never be able to exploit his full knowledge because without enough drive he will likely be seen as easy-going.

A highly energetic person who lacks professional expertise is prone to commit expensive and irreparable mistakes. Moreover, the lack of expertise will paralyze his strength in energy, making him unable to make quality and timely decisions.

A highly energetic and highly expert person who lacks integrity is an “evil genius” who certainly has no value in an organization that hopes to endure sustainable growth. This person is the one who will use his strengths to achieve his objectives on the detriments of others.

High integrity with a lack of energy and expertise is a saintly figure with a moral tone but with no energy to accomplish anything. However, it is still easy to compensate for the lack of energy and expertise by hiring competent and action-oriented subordinates, then to compensate for a leader’s integrity. A leader’s integrity cannot be compensated by the honesty of other individuals. For this reason lack of integrity is like cancer in the organization that spreads to kill the whole body. A corrupt leader will find a million ways to corrupt all his subordinates. (Singh, 2008)Unfortunately, real leaders as described by Singh are hard to find. By constantly applying those rules to identify who qualifies for real leaders we unmistakably come up short. Are the standards getting lower? Conor Neill refers to Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet’s “chauffeur” leaders. Bill Treasurer calls them Pigheads and Weaklings. I prefer to call them bad girls and bad boys who unlike good girls and good boys who go to heaven; bad girls and bad boys go everywhere. They may be happy while they should be ashamed. More than that we should be ashamed if we let them get into our lives. We live in a world where we can fact-check anyone and the vastness of possibilities that are available should help us choose wisely.

We can choose wisely by looking at:

A leader who is trying to be clear, rather than trying to be right.

A leader who listens, asks questions rather than providing answers pretending he knows all our problems.

A leader who does not aim to have the last word. A leader who shares decision-making through meritocracy.

A leader who does not need to show that it was his idea but rather credit others for their work.

A leader who keeps his promise and works to deliver.

A leader who understands that he is only as good as his last work, therefore he must continuously work to improve his work.

A leader who does not worship a grandiose figure of himself or disguise in titles he does not own. Like pretending to have titles he does not have.

A leader who has expertise in what he is doing is not afraid to ask or inquire about something he does not know. Not to overcommit and rarely deliver on responsibilities and promises.

A leader who does not make excuses when things didn’t go as expected, and lead others not to trust him.

A leader who accepts feedback and accepts being validated by followers, and accepts his limitations, and accepts others to surpass him and achieve more.

A leader who will show up but never will show off, who is humble, talk little, but when he does he will walk the talk.

To conclude, fake leaders are everywhere around us and they constantly try to fool us with the image of a real leader. The only way to identify them is to scratch beneath the glamorous surface that they try to project on us. By referring to those principles and examples above, by applying critical thinking, and by inquiring about them we can differentiate real leaders from Pigheads, Weaklings, Fake leaders, and impostors masquerading as leaders.

References:

Singh, J. (2008). Impostors masquerading as leaders: can the contagion be contained?. Journal of Business Ethics, 82(3), 733–745.