Free Article By Paul Glen of C2
Consulting
Every month we add to this collection of articles from the free monthly
newsletter IT Professionalism.
You are also free to print these articles in your newsletter or magazine if
you follow our Reprint Policy.
To subscribe to it, click here.
One Sure Way To Fail
(This article originally appeared in
Computerworld USA and received the 2007 American Society of Business Publication
Editors National Silver Award for a regularly contributed column to a business
publication.)
With fair regularity, someone will ask me,
“What is the single most important thing for a leader to do to be successful?”
In other words, “What’s the secret to good management?” Of course, there’s no
good answer. There are many paths to management success, and, sadly, none of
them is particularly well trodden.
But for every path to success, there seem to be
at least 10 highways to failure, and traffic is always jammed on those. There’s
no shortage of bad management and leadership out there. “Dilbert” is funny for
good reason: Most of our bosses are, shall we say, suboptimal.
But I have begun to notice a single pattern
that I’d call one of the most common paths to failure: Managers with a sense of
personal exceptionalism seem to have a particularly tough time, both in business
and in life.
Personal exceptionalism is a feeling that one
is not like other people. For some reason, a person believes that he is special
and better than everyone else — that he is apart and above. The exceptional
person has more than a grand view of himself — he has a grandiose one.
This isn’t the same as self-confidence or
healthy self-esteem. Confident people have a sense of their own competencies
(and deficiencies), but they don’t believe that they have transcended the
boundaries of ordinary humanity. They still exist on the same plane as the rest
of us, even if they harbor a belief in their own abilities. Those with healthy
self-esteem have generally positive feelings about themselves and their value,
but this doesn’t lead them to believe that they must be judged by a different
set of standards than everyone else.
Personal exceptionalism is also not the same as
group exceptionalism. Believing that one’s team is truly special and apart is
quite different. (It brings its own problems, but that’s a different story.)
I suspect that some people arrive in management
with this problem already well established. In fact, they may seek leadership
roles because of their sense of exceptionality: “I deserve this role and, in
fact, no one else is as qualified as I am.” But they may also acquire this
delusion after assuming the job. If enough people tell you how wonderful you
are, how special you are, at some point there’s a temptation to believe it. It’s
easy to forget that all the flattery and favors that come with leadership are
usually aimed at the role, not its inhabitant.
So, what’s the big deal? How does a bit of
excessive pride lead to misery?
People who feel that they are exceptional think
rules are meant for “regular” people. So they tend to take liberties that the
rest of us would never consider. Sometimes it’s about relatively small things.
They think their time is more precious than the rest of ours, so they
deliberately show up at meetings 10 minutes late to avoid having to wait for
anyone else. They park their Hummer in the compact spot because it’s closer to
the office, and they blame building management for putting in too few regular
spaces. They always eat the doughnuts but never bring them.
Transgressions can grow over time.
Embezzlement, insider trading and sexual harassment are not uncommon for people
with these personality types. But they can justify anything to themselves on the
basis of their own exceptionalism. They see themselves as special people and
feel that they can’t be judged by our rules.
But well short of the criminal, managers with
this sense of self fail spectacularly. That’s because demonstrating contempt for
one’s staff doesn’t inspire confidence, and even minor violations of the
cultural rules of behavior undermine credibility. When these people violate the
rules that they lay down for others, they are quickly branded as hypocrites and
lose credibility on all issues.
Leaders with this misconception also tend to be
rather unhappy people, no matter what they portray outwardly. They judge
themselves by their own grandiose standards and rarely measure up. The perpetual
sense of shame for not actually being as exceptional as they feel can be a
crushing burden.
So, if you detect any feelings of
exceptionalism creeping into your personality, nip them in the bud. Guarding
against personal exceptionalism may not be enough to guarantee management
success, but it’s a great start if you want to head a productive group and lead
a happy life.
© Copyright 2006 by Computerworld Inc., One Speen Street, Framingham, MA, 01701. Reprinted by permission of
Computerworld. All Rights Reserved.
