By ALEX OGUNDADEGBE
Have you ever worked with people who are not as good as they think? This may come as a surprise, but from a perspective of statistics they are more likely to be male than female! Men are typically more deceived about their talents than women are. Men are also more likely to succeed in their careers and that is probably because one of the ways in which you can make other people feel you are better than you really are is to fool yourself first. That is why you may just not have worked with people who are not as good as they think, but may have also worked for them too.
Unfortunately being unaware of your limitations in today’s world improves your opportunities of being a boss. As an analyst in Human Resources I like to look at the psychology of people at work and it’s fascinating to see the relationships between gender, personality and leadership. Gender and personality shape our choices of leaders and to a large extent how these leaders have an impact on their organizations and countries.
We must stop incompetent men from becoming leaders. They are plunging countries, companies and organizations into chaos by their antics and atrocities.
Do you really wonder why 40 per cent of Caucasian women chose Donald Trump over Hilary Clinton in the presidential election? Discussions on gender tend to focus on the under representation of women in leadership and this is a universal concept. Anywhere in the world the thoughts swing towards women not being good enough to lead and the vast majority of leaders are male. Results also show that a lot of these leaders who are of the male gender are incompetent. Checks in areas such as business and politics show that most male leaders have negative effects on their followers and subordinates, causing low levels of trust, very little engagement and dismal productivity. This in turn leads to high levels of burn out and stress.
Crazy, unbearable, toxic and abusive are some of the words that have been associated with the boss in many environments and most cases the person is a man. You may want to ask why very few women become leaders but a better question is: why do so many incompetent men become leaders? A few reasons suffice: The inability to distinguish between competence and confidence; we assume erroneously that confident people have more potential for leadership than any other area in question. There tends to be a wide difference and virtually very little overlap between how people think they are at something (confidence) and how good they actually are (competence). Third World politics and business shows that there is a yawning gap between how good leaders think they are and how they really are. Some of them, in a manner of speaking, lower the standards and references to make themselves look good and it can be quite frustrating for people who have a larger view of life and have been to other countries and climates where leadership is more effective. When self-perceived talents tend to surpass actual talents we may have a problem.
Secondly, we also have an unquantified love for charismatic individuals and this is dangerous. The media has not helped in this regard, particularly the social media where the narrative is controlled so relentlessly. We find there are very few independent people who can make up their minds about how good a leader really is. The media is swayed by leaders who are charming and entertaining. The best leaders tend to be humble rather than charismatic to the point of being rather boring. We are unable to resist the lure of narcissistic individuals, people with grandiose and megalomaniac visions. A lot of the popular advice that help in nurturing and promoting popular leaders are narcissistic in mindset: “Love yourself no matter what”, “don’t worry about what people think of you!” “If you think you are great, you are!” Unfortunately, these create a surplus of leaders who are unaware of their limitations and unjustifiably pleased with themselves. They see leadership as an entitlement and lack empathy and self control so they end up acting without integrity and indulge in reckless risks.
The best leaders manage to keep their narcissism in check. They care a lot about other people including what the people think about them and spend a great deal of time worrying about their reputation, which is why there are very few scandals about them.
We must stop incompetent men from becoming leaders. They are plunging countries, companies and organizations into chaos by their antics and atrocities. Some would think it’s all about education and enlightenment but the real factor is about understanding what visions and missions really are and benefiting the majority of people that they are supposed to lead.
We should not be naive in thinking we can affect the lives of everyone around us positively, but we can certainly affect the lives of a majority. Leadership and indeed leaders should portend towards fulfilling a vision and a mission and making sure those concepts have a positive effect on those who follow them. If they don’t, what really is the point?
Leadership and indeed leaders should portend towards fulfilling a vision and a mission and making sure those concepts have a positive effect on those who follow them. If they don’t, what really is the point?
There have to be guidelines for reducing the number of incompetent men who get into leadership while we also encourage the competent men and indeed more women. Perhaps we are asking why the emphasis on women? Well, Angela Merkel of Germany, the lady who they nicknamed The Milk Maid is the icon for women who are humble intelligent and unassuming in their quest for leadership. Merkel was chancellor for 16 years in Germany. She took the reins from Helmut Kohl who became corrupt towards the end of his term and was asked to resign by Merkel who was his protege. Merkel has a similar personality in business in Indra Nooyi former CEO and former chairman of Pepsi Co. Nooyi’s leadership and business acumen saw the company rising to prominent heights just as Germany became not only prosperous in Merkel’s time but also led the drive for peace and prosperity in Europe. One thing Merkel had going for her is that a lot of leaders underestimated her and she out performed and out stayed them all in power. Some analysts believe that she stayed on purposely to ensure that Donald Trump did not misbehave in the balance of power between Europe and the United States.
Every leader needs to get the right results in the positions that they hold. Purpose is prominent. If you cannot better the lives of the people who follow you and ensure that productivity, peace and prosperity are the order of the day; do you really belong in leadership?
*Ogundadegbe is a renowned management consultant. He trains managers and executives in the arts of Customer Service, Human Resources Management and Management strategy ([email protected]).
