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    Why Leaders Lose Their Way

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    vian hassan
    This article discusses how leaders can lose their way due to various pressures and seductions. It provides examples of leaders who committed unethical or illegal acts despite their success. While leaders are often seen as heroes, they are still human and vulnerable. The article explores different types of leadership and emphasizes the importance of self-reflection for leaders to understand their purpose and avoid falling into traps like relying only on external validation. Maintaining a support system and focus on serving others rather than oneself can help leaders stay grounded and avoid missteps when powerful pressures arise.

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    Why Leaders Lose Their Way

    Uploaded by

    vian hassan
    67 views6 pages
    This article discusses how leaders can lose their way due to various pressures and seductions. It provides examples of leaders who committed unethical or illegal acts despite their success. While leaders are often seen as heroes, they are still human and vulnerable. The article explores different types of leadership and emphasizes the importance of self-reflection for leaders to understand their purpose and avoid falling into traps like relying only on external validation. Maintaining a support system and focus on serving others rather than oneself can help leaders stay grounded and avoid missteps when powerful pressures arise.

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    Why leaders lose their way

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    This article discusses how leaders can lose their way due to various pressures and seductions. It provides examples of leaders who committed unethical or illegal acts despite their success. While leaders are often seen as heroes, they are still human and vulnerable. The article explores different types of leadership and emphasizes the importance of self-reflection for leaders to understand their purpose and avoid falling into traps like relying only on external validation. Maintaining a support system and focus on serving others rather than oneself can help leaders stay grounded and avoid missteps when powerful pressures arise.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    67 views6 pages

    Why Leaders Lose Their Way

    Uploaded by

    vian hassan
    This article discusses how leaders can lose their way due to various pressures and seductions. It provides examples of leaders who committed unethical or illegal acts despite their success. While leaders are often seen as heroes, they are still human and vulnerable. The article explores different types of leadership and emphasizes the importance of self-reflection for leaders to understand their purpose and avoid falling into traps like relying only on external validation. Maintaining a support system and focus on serving others rather than oneself can help leaders stay grounded and avoid missteps when powerful pressures arise.

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    Organizational Behaviour | 1

    WHY LEADERS LOSE THEIR WAY

    What is "Leadership"? According to Organizational Behaviour, 17th edition by Stephen P.


    Robbins and Timothy A. Judge, leadership is "the ability to influence a group toward the
    achievement of a vision or set of goals." Throughout history, strong leaders have used many
    kinds of leadership theories to guide them to lead their people and organization. There are;

    i. Trait theories of leadership


    Focus on personal qualities and characteristics that differentiate leaders from non-
    leaders. For a personality, a comprehensive review of the leadership literature
    organized around the Big Five Framework.
    ii. Behavioural Theories
    Proposing that specific behaviours differentiate leaders from non-leaders. In contrast,
    imply we can train people to be leaders and provides us a basis for selecting the right
    people based on their successful past behaviour that predictor of future success.
    iii. Contingency Theories
    The theory that effective groups depend on a proper match between a leader's style of
    interacting with subordinates and the degree to which the situation gives control and
    influence to the leader. This theory based on "The Fiedler Model".
    iv. Situational Leadership Theory
    A contingency theory that focuses on followers' readiness. the leadership styles must
    be varied according to the situation.
    v. Path-Goal Theory
    A theory that states that it is the leader's job to assist followers in attaining their goals
    and to provide the necessary direction and/or support to ensure that their goals are
    compatible with the overall objectives of the group organization.
    vi. Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory
    A theory that supports leaders' creation of in-groups and out-group; subordinates with
    in-group status will have higher performance ratings, less turnover, and greater job
    satisfaction.

    By looking at all the leadership theories above, by human nature we will feel safe in terms of
    our leaders have all the knowledge in the world that could guide them in leading the path for
    us to follow. But its more what eyes can see!
    Organizational Behaviour | 2
    I've came across one article from Harvard Business Review (HBR) that caught my attention
    to read it further. "Why Leaders Lost Their Way", what a catchy headlines to begin with.
    Many of us know being a leader is not an easy task. It comes with a great responsibility and
    power. But once we misuse it, everything that we cherish and built before will shattered like a
    glass in front of us. There are lots of people proclaim themselves as a leader, but actually in
    an organization I can guarantee you that there are many bosses but few leaders.
    "Why Leaders Lost Their way" is an article written by Prof. Bill George for HBR and
    published on Jun 6, 2011. It was about how powerful leaders lost their moral bearings and
    how they could stay grounded and prepare themselves to confront enormous complexities and
    pressures throughout their reign.
    This article revealed about few high-level leaders have mysteriously lost their way while they
    were at the peak of their career by doing unethical behaviour and even illegal act such as
    submitting false expense reports, covering up an extra mental affair with monetary payoffs,
    bank fraud schemes and many more. All of these talented leaders were well-known and
    successful in their respective fields but somehow their behaviour especially perplexing and
    keeping us raising question why they are behaving this way.
    Prof. Bill George brilliantly revealed how the media, politicians and the general public
    perceptions towards leaders. Leaders frequently characterize as bad people and even some
    call them an evil person. But not all people go into leadership to "CHEAT" or do "EVIL".
    Lets us take Lee B. Farkas for instant. He was a former chairman of giant mortgage lender for
    Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, in April 2011 was found guilty for his role in one of the largest
    bank fraud schemes in America history. Despites all that we can't categorize him as a bad or
    an evil person, he's more as a leader who lost his moral bearing due to yielding to seductions
    in his path on climbing a higher satisfaction in his career.
    When someone decided to takes on a leadership role, they should ask themselves, "Why do I
    want to lead?" and "what's the purpose of my leadership?" Its sound simple but if you
    couldn't find the answer to it, its mean you are not ready to become one. In organizational
    behaviour there are few types of leaders we can identify and they are;

    i. Charismatic leadership - A leadership theory that states that followers make


    attributions of heroic or extraordinary leadership abilities when they observe certain
    behaviours.
    ii. Transactional leaders - Leaders who guide or motivate their followers
    in the direction of established goals by clarifying role and task requirements.
    Organizational Behaviour | 3
    iii. Transformation leaders - Leaders who inspire followers to transcend their own
    self-interests and who are capable of having a profound and extraordinary effect on
    followers.
    iv. Authentic leadership - Leaders who know who they are, know what they
    believe in and value, and act on those values and beliefs openly and candidly. Their
    followers would consider them to be ethical people.
    v. Ethical leadership - Leaders who influences not only direct followers, but
    all the way down the command structure as well.
    vi. Socialized charismatic leadership - A leadership concept that states that leaders
    convey values that are other-centered versus self-centered and who role-model ethical
    conduct.
    vii. Servant leadership - A leadership style marked by going beyond the
    leader's own self-interest and instead focusing on opportunities to help followers grow
    and develop.

    All these types of leaders required to do "self-reflection" as a path of their leadership


    development. They need to know what type of leader that they want to be and what is the
    purpose of leadership that they want to pursue. If they only focusing on power, prestige and
    money, leaders are at risk of relying on external gratification for fulfilment. High tendency
    for them to fall in the "leadership trap" as mentioned in the article.
    Leaders come in different form but the only thing that separate them are their strong desire to
    win and become successful. We are aware that most people value fair compensation for their
    accomplishment and their deepen desire that keep them going to achieve what they wanted to
    achieve in life. There is no right or wrong in this statement but when they often driven by
    strong desires, leaders can do whatever it takes even though they know their action can leads
    to bizarre and illegal behaviour. This happen when leaders start focusing on external
    gratification instead of inner satisfaction, tendency for them to lose their grounding is high.
    Many top leaders climbing the corporate leader by imposing their will on others and even
    destroying people who standing in their way. This behaviour categorize under "the dark side
    of leadership". When leaders reach to the top and started feeling insecure with people
    surround them, they tend to develop an impostor complex that caused this symptom to be
    awaken. They are so focus on getting people approval and showing them how capable they
    are as a leader until they forgot to stop and take a deep breath. They believe that if they don't
    work hard enough people will start thinking that they are impostor not a true leader. They
    Organizational Behaviour | 4
    also incapable accepting their own failure and usually looking for "scapegoats" to take all the
    blame. Basically, at this stage leaders are vulnerable to making big mistake because they are
    not thinking straight and their capacity to think logically about important issues.
    However, being a leader require a hard work. Once one decided to become a leader, he or she
    need to be aware that this position will come with great power and responsibilities. Not to
    mention the challenges that a leader need to face in daily basis. This is where support system
    is really important. It will help them to maintain their equilibrium and keep them to stay
    centered. At the same time, leaders can avoid any misshaped and pitfalls by reframing their
    leadership from being heroes to being servants of the people they lead.
    In conclusion, this article thought us a leader can't be a leader without a follower and a leader
    need to bear in mind that "You need Power, only when you want to do something
    'HARMFUL', otherwise 'LOVE' is enough to get everything done". Successful leaders are
    always looking for opportunities to help others but unsuccessful leaders are always asking
    "what's in it for me?"

    Organizational Behaviour | 5
    References

    1. George, B. (2011, June 8). Why Leaders Lose Their Way. Harvard Business Review.
    Retrieved from https://hbr.org
    2. Robbins, Judge, S. P., T. A. (2016). Organizational Behaviour, 17 edition. Global
    Edition, Pearson
    3. Peshawaria, R. (2014). Leadership for Sustainable Success. Retrieved from
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMoqK0o-TPg

    Organizational Behaviour | 6

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