This week, I had a short conversation with an HR manager who had been receiving my weekly leadership tips. She said she 'loved' the leadership tips but didn't send them on to her narcissistic executives because their egos blinded them from improving their leadership capability.
Since few HR managers have the power or guts to take the action necessary to improve the leadership ability of those in management, they need outside help in fostering leadership development within their organizations.
There is an old Yiddish proverb that applies to every organizational leader: "The fish always sinks at the head." The leader with CEO Disease doesn't know the smell that he or she is spreading throughout the organization. The personally coached CEO discovers what smell he or she is spreading across the corporate culture and works to make it a productive and positive scent.
Today’s CEOs attempt to emulate superstars like Bill Gates, Andy Grove, Steve Jobs and Jack Welch. They hire their own publicists, write books, give interviews and actively promote their personal philosophies. Their faces appear on magazine covers. They strive to become shapers of their unique brands of leadership style.
We are all somewhat narcissistic, or self-centered. If we lacked this tendency, we couldn’t survive or assert our needs. “Healthy narcissism” allows us to lead a company and its people to greatness.
However, an over extension of the narcissism mindset can become a weakness when the executive doesn't get it.
They just make things worse when they try to solve their direct reports' problems. Their closed mindset results in doubting that the people below them have a clue what the employee is talking about. They don't realize that you can't manage anyone with vague goals. Many don't believe that there is a big difference between telling or even showing someone what is expected of them versus actually rolling up their sleeves to make sure employees completely understand what they'll be expected to do in the future.
Narcissistic leaders rarely talk with employees about how their work is going. They are just too busy and time doesn't allow for such conversations. Since there is only one of him or her to go around, the leader fears getting bogged down by locked into a discussion with employees takes the leader away from all the 'important' phone calls and emails he or she has to respond to. The narcissistic leader thinks there are not enough hours in the day to stay connected with the managers and workers in the organization.
And there lies their leadership blind spot. They get distracted by the laundry list of stuff they think they have to do each day, when their top priority should be communicating with their team. Not staying in touch with everyone to monitor their progress and letting them know the leader is watching their back, allows tough problems to grow and fester.
If your manager doesn't listen to your ideas, then who will?
One way to probe the clueless leader's self-awareness, is to give him or her a gift that allows this important message to surface: if you aren't staying in touch, you aren't doing your job. This book can help to do just that: