December 21, 2009
In this issue:
The Compass of a Leader - Article
What Readers are Saying About Derailed
Quick Links and Resources
Greetings!
I hope this email finds you well. As we wind down 2009 and prepare for 2010, I want to share the article below as a reminder that effective leadership is about setting direction. Not just direction for those who we lead, but direction that guides our own steps as well. Feel free to share your feedback by replying to this email. We do read every response.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours,
Tim Irwin
www.DerailedLeader.com
www.DrTimIrwin.com
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The Compass of a Leader
Early in my career, a client requested I meet with a prospective merger partner in the financial services industry. The schedule was tight, so for a week, I flew around in a private jet to various cities, and, at each location was whisked away to my meetings in a waiting, planeside limo. I stayed in beautiful hotels and generally had a bevy of people making sure that every detail of my trip ran smoothly.
By the end of the week, I was getting used to being treated like I was important and I drove home on Friday night a bit full of myself. Anne, my wife, greeted me at the door with her normal cheerfulness and then dropped the bombshell on me. One of the toilets was clogged, and a plumber wanted a budget-busting amount of money for the repair. This was not the sort of clog that a plunger would take care of with a few well-aimed thrusts. A cloth diaper was lodged in a region of the toilet I didn’t know existed and required a hands-on approach to solve. The sights, smells, and sensations were memorable. After several hours of immersion in the project, the toilet finally cleared. I felt like I need to be taken to the nearest hazmat center and sprayed down from head to toe for exposure to germ warfare. I went to bed that night in a really foul mood.
The next morning, I woke up laughing. Immersion in the toilet was actually a perfect way to end the week and bring me back down to reality. The toilet was real life, not flying around in a private corporate jet, staying in expensive hotels. We all need a good “in the toilet experience” every now and then to remind us who we really are.
In my new book, Derailed, Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership, I studied a number of CEOs who had been fired by their boards in recent years. While these individuals often had performed brilliantly in the past, they failed catastrophically in the jobs from which they were fired. They were like the engineers of huge freight trains who ignored critical warnings and went off the rails. Most of these individuals were ultimately fired, not because of a lack of competence, but rather a lack of character. A big lesson learned …“Arrogance is the mother of all derailers.”
One of the most revealing tests of a person’s character is power. We see in the six failed leader profiles in Derailed that power, in many cases, became self-serving. The “trappings” of power often tell a lot about character. Bob Nardelli created a nine car personal parking area for his cars underneath Home Depot’s corporate office. His private elevator went from his personal parking area straight to his private office on the top floor of the building without stopping on other floors.
While a failure of character can manifest itself in many ways, the most foundational and most self-destructive is arrogance. Just as humility seems to be at the epicenter of leadership effectiveness, arrogance is commonly at the root of a leader’s undoing…and ours. The specific derailers that rendered the profiled leaders incapable of continuing in their positions varied, but there is an underlayment of arrogance in every one of their derailments.
Arrogance takes many forms. The most rudimentary is the self-centered focus that fosters a belief that I am central to the viability of the organization, the department or the team. The resulting dismissiveness of others’ contributions is inevitable. When arrogance blossoms into hubris, a sense of entitlement results. “This place can’t function without me, and I deserve special perks.” Arrogant leaders also seem to eschew feedback so beneficial to any leader. They become “truth-starved.”
Nardelli became known for arrogance and an alienation of the people he needed most. Regardless of Nardelli’s vision for the company, how could he ever achieve his objectives without the alignment, commitment, and loyalty of the Home Depot employees? The big lesson is that no matter how brilliant, charming, strategic, or commanding in presence a leader is, the consequences of a failed character are extraordinarily disabling and will bring down even the strongest among us.
Effective leaders must set direction, gain alignment among diverse constituencies, risk change, build high-performing teams, achieve results, go the extra mile and endure ungodly stress. To be enthusiastically followed, leaders must also be guided by an inner compass that fosters trust on the part of their followers. That compass is character.
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What Readers are Saying About Derailed:
From Amazon.com...
"Tim Irwin's new book is not just for those in high profile leadership positions. It is a book for anyone who relates to others in a leadership role. It is a book for pastors, school principals, Boy Scout Troop leaders, and moms and dads. All of us who relate to people as a leader (whether in the home, business world or public service) are vulnerable to the same kind of failures which are profiled so well in "Derailed." What I like about the book is the practical application of the lessons which can be learned from the catastrophic leadership failures detailed in Irwin's book. The last chapter of the book, "Habits of the Heart to Stay on Track," is worth the price of the book! This chapter presents disciplines that all people need to understand and apply to be successful in their relationships with others throughout life. Did I mention the stories? Irwin uses real life stories to illustrate the main points of his book. The stories make you want to start another chapter just to see what's next! Irwin tells the story dad, a WWII bomber pilot and veteran flyer for Delta Airlines, crash landing a four engine jed carrying 88 passengers as an example of the virtue of courage. I was moved by the story and challenged by Irwin's suggestions on "Developing Courage." I highly recommend this book. You'll enjoy reading it and discover some principles that will help you "keep on track" in whatever level of leadership you find yourself." -Carl Laney
"Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership is one of the best books that I have read in a long time. We are living in an age of highly publicized failures of leadership. These failures run the gamut of business, political, religious and sports leaders. Like seeing a train wreck we are tempted to gaze upon the carnage with a morbid fascination. Irwin, however, takes us beyond this morbid fascination and brings us to an examination of self so as to avoid failure in our own lives...Not only does Irwin get to the heart of the matter, he offers a clear path to avoid the character flaws that cause leadership failure. Whether you lead a large organization, a few employees, a family or just yourself, you should read this book. You will be challenged to be a better leader. " - Frank Gantz
What causes a leader to fail? What can we learn from those who have fallen? How do we avoid failure of our own? These are just a few of the question answered in Derailed: 5 Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership, a new book by Dr. Tim Irwin for leaders and aspiring leaders of all levels. Derailed chronicles the collapse of six high-profile CEOs, the factors that drove their downfalls, and the lessons that we can learn to avoid derailing our own lives and careers.
