In my view, though, unchecked ego, rather than money itself, is the real root cause of the problem. Why? Because out-of-control ego badly skews leadership judgment. And good judgment, along with clear vision and consistent communication, is absolutely fundamental to effective leadership. Without it, as we have unfortunately seen of late, promising careers and entire organizations can self-destruct.
Judgment begins with humility - which has a couple key elements. First, humility calls for recognizing that we don't know everything. Too many leaders in the financial sector apparently thought it was impossible for them to make big mistakes. As money poured in over the short term, they simply weren't inclined to reflect on the effect of their decisions over the long term. The truth, of course, is that we are all quite fallible, regardless of our educational pedigree or our professional résumé or the size of our bank account. Humility also requires regular acts that remind us we are not bigger than our organizations. It's not about ego. The mission is more important than anyone's ego.
You must identify the most pivotal roles in your organization, play a key role in filling them and listen to what the people in those roles tell you. That is work that senior leaders in corporations, government and nonprofits sometimes try to pawn off on others. But that is a serious error in judgment. If we put the right people in the right spots, ensure that they have the appropriate resources and training, listen to them and let them do their jobs, the ship will hum. If we don't, we jeopardize our ship's overall performance--and, quite possibly, the well-being of our women and men.
That brings us to a third critical aspect of judgment: the willingness to acknowledge personnel mistakes and to rectify them quickly. After we put a lot of time into filling an important job, we understandably hesitate to undo all that work right away. A sunk-cost mentality dupes us into believing that letting a bad decision stand is still preferable to the huge hassle of redoing it. The moral of the story: Don't wait too long to act when you have the wrong person in a key role.
Reflection - keep a journal, and block time off on your calendar every three months or so to sit down and review the key people decisions you made over the previous year. As leaders, we easily get caught up in our own legacies and lose sight of the men and women we depend on to carry our organizations into the future. And that's dangerous to us and our organizations. Your legacy, after all, will be decided as much by your successors as by you.
Judgment begins with humility - which has a couple key elements. First, humility calls for recognizing that we don't know everything. Too many leaders in the financial sector apparently thought it was impossible for them to make big mistakes. As money poured in over the short term, they simply weren't inclined to reflect on the effect of their decisions over the long term. The truth, of course, is that we are all quite fallible, regardless of our educational pedigree or our professional résumé or the size of our bank account. Humility also requires regular acts that remind us we are not bigger than our organizations. It's not about ego. The mission is more important than anyone's ego.
You must identify the most pivotal roles in your organization, play a key role in filling them and listen to what the people in those roles tell you. That is work that senior leaders in corporations, government and nonprofits sometimes try to pawn off on others. But that is a serious error in judgment. If we put the right people in the right spots, ensure that they have the appropriate resources and training, listen to them and let them do their jobs, the ship will hum. If we don't, we jeopardize our ship's overall performance--and, quite possibly, the well-being of our women and men.
That brings us to a third critical aspect of judgment: the willingness to acknowledge personnel mistakes and to rectify them quickly. After we put a lot of time into filling an important job, we understandably hesitate to undo all that work right away. A sunk-cost mentality dupes us into believing that letting a bad decision stand is still preferable to the huge hassle of redoing it. The moral of the story: Don't wait too long to act when you have the wrong person in a key role.
Reflection - keep a journal, and block time off on your calendar every three months or so to sit down and review the key people decisions you made over the previous year. As leaders, we easily get caught up in our own legacies and lose sight of the men and women we depend on to carry our organizations into the future. And that's dangerous to us and our organizations. Your legacy, after all, will be decided as much by your successors as by you.
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