Dave Livingston sent me a snippet of a press report, which I paste in below.
Lehman,
AIG Chiefs Should `Man Up,' Stop `Kissing the Mirror,' Peers Say Executives
passing the buck for failures that sank their companies or pushed them to the
brink win no sympathy from business leaders and management experts. “They need
to man up and take responsibility,'' said Warren
Bennis, founder of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern
California and author of books including “Leaders'' and “On Becoming a
Leader.'' “They kept winning, believing in their own omniscience and thinking
they can get away with anything.'' Chief executive officers summoned to Capitol
Hill this week by the U.S.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform didn't point fingers at
themselves, drawing criticism from fellow chiefs. “There are three reasons why
companies go out of business and individuals go out of business: No. 1 is
arrogance, No. 2 is arrogance and No. 3 is arrogance,'' said Harvey
Mackay, chairman and CEO of Minneapolis-based MackayMitchell Envelope Co.
and author of “Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive'' and “Beware
the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt.'' “They all have chapped lips from
kissing the mirror too much
As I read this story and thought about what I learned from the recent financial crisis and from the last year or so from writing and talking about The No Asshole Rule with so many people, I realized that I've learned an important lesson about competence. People who are certified assholes and those who are relentlessly arrogant often justify their behavior — and are forgiven by others — when they are seen as winners.I believe — and the evidence is pretty clear for both assholes and arrogance (e.g., see this and this research CEO hubris) — that although some leaders succeed (at least for awhile) despite these flaws, they are indeed dangerous flaws. Just like missing other more tangible targets such as making money or winning games, being arrogant or leaving a trail of demeaned and de-energized people ought to be treated as a sign of incompetence.
In fact, arrogance and acting like an asshole are especially great risks among people who are "winning" for the moment. Although some people are more prone to such forms of incompetence regardless of performance levels, it is clear that any leader of a high-performing organization (regardless of past modesty and civility) is at great risk of turning into an arrogant and insensitive jerk because these are well-documented side effects of success. Just as patients who take a lot of aspirin need to be closely watched for signs abdominal bleeding, the more successful the company, the more likely that arrogance and asshole poisoning will spread, and these should be treated as known and highly dangerous risks. Contrary to standard practice, top-performing leaders should be treated as at especially high risk of developing mindsets that will later cause them to run their organizations into the ground. At the first hint a leader has turned arrogant or is acting like a nasty, self-centered jerk, rehabilitation should commence, and if that fails, he or she should quickly be shown the door.
That's my view, as Dave suggested, perhaps my next book should be The No Arrogance Rule. We would all be better off if those self-proclaimed geniuses on Wall Street had applied the rule a few years back. I guess the Master of the Universe mindset was still seen as a wonderful thing there until very recently.
P.S. I love that line from "They all have chapped lips from
kissing the mirror too much.''
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