Most are discomfited by brash behavior.
So when Donald Trump told convention delegates this summer that “I am your voice. I alone can fix it [the U.S. of A.],” many squirmed at his outright gall.
Leaders typically are humble enough to ask for help in leading the country, either from God, prayer, or their fellow countrymen.
But before we categorize Trump as a one-of-kind, it would do us all well to check our own self-importance gauge and whether it’s been allowed to grow of outsize proportion — especially to the point it threatens progress.
Oftentimes it happens without our knowing.
We’re the CEO of a company and profits are sound; a college president and student enrollment is stable; a politician who keeps being re-elected; a director of an organization that continues to expand; a minister whose flock remains faithful or a hospital CEO whose patient count is steady.
Everything is good, right?
Three harbingers point otherwise.
1. The first sign of danger is when we think these successes are of our making. We’ve been at the helm for 30 years, after all, and without us the ship would sink.
2. The second signal that all is not right is when your talent gets restless and begins to leave. Though you were instrumental in hiring these bright people you clipped their wings by not giving them the raises or promotions they deserve. Frustrated, they feel no choice but to look elsewhere. That’s valuable talent that could be used to take your institution into the future.
3. And the third red flag is denial by yourself or your board of directors for the needed change in leadership.
A plan of transition is essential for every business, and it should not depend on when the CEO is ready to retire, but when change would benefit the institution. Good board members are not “rubber-stampers” but leaders in their own right who put the institution, not their buddies, first.
What’s ideal, of course, is when the top dog — who sees his “pups” eager and ready to take charge — says it’s time for him to step to the side.
That’s leadership.
— Susan Lynn
