{"id":4525,"date":"2011-06-28T05:30:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T10:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.185.166.32\/~davidfoster\/?p=4525"},"modified":"2011-08-29T19:58:26","modified_gmt":"2011-08-30T00:58:26","slug":"number-one-reason-why-great-leaders-go-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/number-one-reason-why-great-leaders-go-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Number One Reason Why Great Leaders Go Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As predictable as hot weather in July, and snow in Alaska, is the fall of great leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems every other week we’re reading about the demise of some leader, either in politics, business, or the church world who have done something stupid to sabotage their influence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Think about this.\u00a0 If great leaders are blind to this, I guarantee you that the rest of us are in danger. It’s the number one reason why good, great leaders always fail.\u00a0 The problem is, the most influential among us are those that we read about and hear about.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is this disease, this virus, this toxic quality once harbored in the heart that signals the end of a leader’s reign? It’s a little thing called “hubris.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In his latest book, “How the Mighty Fall,”<\/a> Jim Collins lists the traits that accompany the demise of great companies.\u00a0 Hubris made that list.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is hubris?\u00a0 We think it’s pride.\u00a0 We think it’s arrogance.\u00a0 And it is those things.\u00a0 But it’s something much deeper, far more subtle, and stealth.\u00a0 Let me illustrate.<\/span><\/p>\n

I received an email from a good friend (I’d say a close friend. I’d say not just a close friend, but someone I admire; not just a close, good friend that I admire, but someone who has gone out of his way to help me at his own expense) that had both encouragement and some correction.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I read the email, both the encouragement and the correction, I became livid immediately.\u00a0 It was as though a switch was thrown on in my psyche.\u00a0 It wasn’t a volitional, conscious response.\u00a0 It was a primal, unconscious anger that made me tremble.\u00a0 I wanted to lash out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because I have a trusted confidant in my wife, I was able to sit down calmly and talk to her about this email.\u00a0 Not the content of it, truthfully the content of it was true.\u00a0 Maybe that’s why it made me angry.\u00a0 It was not even the person who sent it.\u00a0 But it was my response.\u00a0 It scared me.<\/span><\/p>\n

I found myself being angry because someone dared correct me.<\/strong> And that is hubris.<\/em> Pride, ego, self-centered-ness that takes control and causes you to overreact and do things that can destroy your leadership influence forever at worst, and set it back for years at best.<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s the bottom line of all this?\u00a0 That the number one task of a leader is to lead himself or herself.\u00a0 You must – I repeat – must<\/em> lead yourself. <\/strong> You must take charge of your life as you would take charge of a vision, or a mission, or corporation.\u00a0\u00a0 You must understand that you are the most dangerous person in the leadership equation.\u00a0 If you can remain humble, teachable, mold-able, and adaptable, there’s almost no limit to what you can achieve.\u00a0 If you don’t, you will sabotage yourself and become a cautionary tale.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As predictable as hot weather in July, and snow in Alaska, is the fall of great leaders. It seems every other week we’re reading about the demise of some leader, either in politics, business, or the church world who have done something stupid to sabotage their influence. Think about this.\u00a0 If great leaders are blind … Continue reading “Number One Reason Why Great Leaders Go Bad”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4525"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4525"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=4525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}