Don't Look To Nelson Mandela For The Worst Leadership Advice
By Rob Wright, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
Follow Me On Twitter @RfwrightLSL
I recently posed a simple question to members of the Life Science Leader magazine editorial advisory board — what is the best leadership advice you ever received. I received a flurry of responses which will be published in our popular “Ask The Board” monthly feature in upcoming issues. Thus far, no answer was the same, which I found refreshing. Clearly the advice being disclosed had been gained from actual experiences, not something read from the latest bestselling leadership book. Not that these don’t have value. One of my favorite management principles for example, “Things that get rewarded, get done,” I first learned about in college when I read Michael Leboeuf’s book, GMP – The Greatest Management Principle In The World.
My question to the board made me ponder what the worst leadership advice anyone had ever received. I began asking the question around the office and found many struggled with being able to provide an answer. However, a few were able to share stories and examples of poor leadership. As a result, I decided to go fishing for bad leadership advice in a bigger pond — the World Wide Web.
The Worst Leadership Guru
When I first started the monthly Leadership Lessons column in Life Science Leader magazine, I Googled the search term “Leadership Gurus.” This is how I made the acquaintance of three leadership experts — Mike Myatt, John Baldoni and Roger Connors. Perhaps I could do the same for finding some insight on the worst leadership advice. So I typed in “the worst leadership advice I ever got” into Google and soon found this interesting article posted by Bill Sheridan, referencing a column written by George Cloutier, author of a national bestseller — Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re The Only Thing. Coultier, a self-described “turnaround ace” has been interviewed by The New York Times and NBC, just to name a few. A big proponent of the “just view me as God” school of management, this magna cum laude graduate from Harvard College and Harvard Business School has this advice on leadership.
- Be a dictator. Your directives must be clear and absolute.
- Tell your employees: "Don't think—obey." You want them to do what you say, not what they think they should do.
- Forget your likability score. It's okay if your employees don't like you, as long as they respect you. Earn it by getting in the trenches with them. You have to let workers know you are in it with them.
- Be a feared general. Command the respect you deserve with clear direction and reward/penalize based on performance.
- Fear is the best motivator. Strict accountability and the fear of losing a job are highly effective employee performance enhancers.
- Penalize poor or negligent performance. Companies spend too much time worrying about incentives and not enough about penalties.
- Fire incompetent employees. And do it sooner rather than later. If you don't, the performers in your business will resent it, and you'll continue to lose money on payroll for someone who contributes only mediocrity to the bottom line.
- Enforce, enforce, enforce. There's no point in managing by the numbers or having a precise operational plan for profits unless you are willing to make sure that everyone follows the plan to the letter.
When you think about it, much of the advice, with the exception of, “Be a dictator,” and “Don’t think — obey,” is actually not terrible. In fact, most of it is very good. Unfortunately, Cloutier’s communication style is so terrible it comes as no surprise that the comments, of which there are only nine, are of the negative variety. The problem isn’t the message, but the delivery, or as my wife says, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” Want another barometer as to if Cloutier’s Harvard-derived delivery of wisdom misses the mark? It was shared 10 times on Facebook, Tweeted seven times, and shared twice on LinkedIn.
The Best Leadership Advice
When I think of some of the best leadership advice I have ever received, there are a variety of potential sources on which to draw. But someone I had the pleasure to meet, thanks to Mike Myatt, imparted the concept of servant leadership — James Strock, author of Serve To Lead. The servant leadership premise goes against Cloutier’s style because Strock advocates putting others first — namely your employees. Here is some good leadership advice — steer clear of Cloutier’s advocacy of being a dictator and loving your business even more than your family. Instead, aspire to serve to lead, as practiced by one of the most inspiring leaders of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela, who analogized a leader being similar to a shepherd. “He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”