In a recent article for the BBC website, FT journalist Lucy Kellaway (Twitter @lucykellaway) outlined the Seven Deadly Sins of CEOs. Every week for a year and a half, the Financial Times has asked business leaders 20 questions including: “What are your three worst features?” Read the full article by Lucy Kellaway
There was little surprise that the top answer was ‘Control Freak’ although I have to admit to being a little surprised that vanity was seen by CEOs as the second most common flaw.
Overall the list confirms a serious lack of emotional intelligence among the business leaders surveyed. Those familiar with Daniel Goleman’s work on the importance of EI and social awareness will understand the challenges presenting this. To quote from his article Primal Leadership “No matter what leaders set out to do—whether it’s creating strategy or mobilizing teams to action—their success depends on how they do it. Even if they get everything else just right, if leaders fail in this primal task of driving emotions in the right direction, nothing they do will work as well as it could or should.” Read Daniel Goleman article on Primal Leadership
In “New Leaders” (Little Brown, ISBN-13: 978-0316857666) Goleman makes clear links between to the impact of leaders’ emotional states and the social entropy in an organisation. He also outlines specific links between what we commonly know as staff satisfaction and the experience customers have.
As leaders we ignore this out our peril. As I have stated many times in keynotes and client programmes, companies who allow their people to continue to feel under pressure and undervalued will lose their talented people when they need them most – when the market improves. The latest figures suggest that around 30% of people will look to move jobs when the economic upturn happens.
So how can we make a difference?
- Make behavioural non-performance as much of a performance issue as financial or productivity.
- Ensure that leaders throughout the organisation understand that it’s how you communicate when you aren’t formally communicating that makes the real difference.
- Focus leadership development activities on developing self awareness, personal development and increasing social tools. Hard tools can be built along the way.
- Make feedback – real feedback – the meat and drink of the organisation.
- Ensure that the top team in the organisation aren’t tied to the business areas they are experts in. It is incredibly hard not to be a control freak when you really do know more than everyone else in your team.
This Week’s Call To Action:
- I would really like your help and views. I want to build a growing bank of information about what behaviours we most need to focus on changing in 2011. Please email me at richard@kaizen-training.com with the ‘deadly sins’ you experience from leaders today. In other words, what would you love us to help you your bosses do which would help your business world to be a better place?
In return, I invite you to download my ‘Leaders Uncut’ audio interviews for free. These interviews were recorded live and in one take in 2010 with some of the most interesting leaders I had come across. They are packed with insights and information. To access the interviews go to Free Leadership Download
