A Personal Experience with Bad Leadership

1243 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Self confidence as a leader essay

In the author’s experience, arrogance is the most damaging trait that a person in a leadership role can possess. Arrogance is the product of an ego that is out of control; however, the ego can be restrained when the will and desire exist to do so. The will and desire to control the ego and express humility must be a lifelong endeavor for those with large egos, lest they revert to their negative ways.

A Personal Experience

For many years, the author has reported either directly or indirectly to one particular manager. The manager is an intelligent person and an experienced engineer that worked his way upward from an individual contributor position, but he is one of the most arrogant human beings that the author has ever known.

The Good

The manager in question can be a very personable individual and does possess positive leadership traits. He recognizes achievement and is objective when giving feedback. In addition, he supports individual contributors’ professional goals, ensures that upper management is aware of our accomplishments, and he is fair when awarding compensation increases. In addition, he supports the team’s goals and team building concepts. Several years ago, he organized a team building event and arranged for all of our team’s remote workers to travel to the company office in Framingham, Massachusetts; it was a very pleasant experience and very beneficial to our team cohesiveness. Furthermore, he and the author have common interests and have had many pleasant conversations over the years. To his credit, over the course of the past 13 years he has worked to improve himself.

The Bad and the Ugly

The manager in question is known for getting things done, which is desirable in a leader; however, the author has wi...

... middle of paper ...

...-0695-7

Borton, J. S., Crimmins, A. E., Ashby, R. S., & Ruddiman, J. F. (2012). How Do Individuals with Fragile High Self-esteem Cope with Intrusive Thoughts Following Ego Threat?. Self & Identity, 11(1), 16-35. doi:10.1080/15298868.2010.500935

Canic, M. (2007). Serve with Humility. Leadership Excellence, 24(1), 19.

Clark, D. (2011). Leading and Leadership. Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadled.html

Elrod, D. J. (2013). Of Confidence and Humility. Strategic Finance, 95(8), 17-18.

Kerfoot, K. (2010). Leaders, Self-Confidence, and Hubris: What's the Difference?. Nursing Economic$, 28(5), 350-349.

Marks, J. T. (2012). A Matter of Ethics: Understanding the Mind of a White-Collar Criminal. Financial Executive, 28(9), 31-34.

MindTools. (2013). Level 5 Leadership. Retrieved from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/level-5-leadership.htm

Show More
Related

  • Assignment On Debra Anne Chapin White Collar Crime

    1728 Words  | 4 Pages

    The news article that I decided to do my assignment on is about a bank manager, Debra Anne Chapin, that embezzled 2 million dollars from a bank. The news article’s title is, “Former manager jailed for cheating bank out of $2M; Woman used cash to pay bills, gamble and feed her cocaine habit.” The crime took place in Calgary between June 1, 2006 and June, 30 2008. This embezzlement is a classic case of white collar crime and demonstrates numerous criminological theories.

    Read More

  • Case Study Of Leadership At A Texas Plant

    1073 Words  | 3 Pages

    Organizational transformation happens when leaders are able to impact the culture in a positive manner, and he or she can lead an organization through changes, all while remaining encouraging and ethical. Northouse (2013) defines leadership as a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Leadership ethics is about who leaders are, their character, what they do, and their actions and behaviors (Ethical Leadership, 2016). This case study is about leaders at a Texas plant, and how their leadership style, communication, and ethics affected the organization.

    Read More

  • Kurt Vonnegut's Leadership Analysis

    722 Words  | 2 Pages

    Former president Ronald Reagan summed up leadership by stating that “the greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things” (Daskal, 2015). Effective leaders inspire people. Leaders provide motivation and the direction to achieve goals; large or small. The character, actions and thoughts of leader can permeate an organization. And often, based upon the organizational culture, one can usually tell if the character, action and thoughts were good or bad. Therefore, I agree that arrogance can lead to jumping to conclusions, which can have a negative impact on the success of projects. This is why Kurt Vonnegut’s leadership quote is so poignant-“we are what we pretend

    Read More

  • Examples Of Autoethnography

    1665 Words  | 4 Pages

    The article, ‘Arrogance: A Formula for Leadership Failure’ written by Stanley Silverman shows how leaders who exhibited excessive pride all ended up failing (Silverman). Joe Cassano is the main example in the article. Cassano was a former leader at American International Group (AIG). He is ascribed by some as single-handedly establishing the collapse of AIG. Coworkers verbally expressed Cassano had fondness for yelling, imprecating, lamentable-mouthing others, and derogating colleagues, as well as minute tolerance for antagonistic viewpoints. Cassano’s behavior brought the entire company down. Regardless of the fact that it was the practices he endorsed that led AIG to be considered as one of the most eminent examples of superfluity associated with Wall Street, Cassano remained impenitent about his role and inculpated others for the tragedy. The article additionally points out arrogant comportment attributed with a range of individuals and organizational quandaries. Individuals who are arrogant make a stressful and unbearable environment for others, and end up having poor

    Read More

  • Ineffective Leadership Analysis

    812 Words  | 2 Pages

    The success of the organization depends on how the leaders utilize their management and leadership skills in the organization. Mission, vision and core values of the organization are posted everywhere in the organization to remind every stakeholder about their accountability and responsibility in accordance to the corporate goals. This can’t be effective without successful leadership approach. Effective leader must know how, when and where to communicate the shared vision of the organization to its stakeholders. The goal is to align personal values with the corporate values to reach optimum level of satisfaction towards the work, and the company expectations to its stakeholders. Ineffective leaders are not capable of employing this. They are not capable of employing management by objective or the ability of the managers to align the objective of the all the units and departments of the organization into the organizational goals and values. MBO starts with setting organizational objectives, followed by cascading objectives down to employees-cascading objectives down to employees requires adoption of SMART approach to ensure that goals are attainable and accountable (Mindtools, 2014)

    Read More

  • Negative Leadership Behavior

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    The extreme leadership style of the Authoritarian can have a negative effect on team members. A characteristic of this leader is one who makes all the decisions and passes the directives to subordinates who are expected to carry these out under very close supervision. Because open communication is vital to any project, these perceptions can hurt team performance.

    Read More

  • Poverty and Crime in America

    3673 Words  | 8 Pages

    Shover, N, & Hochstetler, A. (2006). Choosing white-collar crime. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Read More

  • Good Boss, Bad Boss by Robert Sutton PhD

    1410 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sutton tells one “Learn to be just assertive enough, and don’t become an overbearing asshole” (Sutton, 2010). As a boss one has to act confident because acting makes one feel confident this is the self-fulfilling prophecy. Acting confident Sutton says “magnify the illusion and reality that you are in control of what your followers do, how well they perform, and they ...

    Read More

  • Toxic Leadership

    3158 Words  | 7 Pages

    There is an importance of leaders to first analyze the impact of their emotional manifestation. Leaders should own emotional intelligence. Those leaders that don’t possess emotional int...

    Read More

  • Poor Leadership Case Study

    730 Words  | 2 Pages

    Leader should have the shared responsibility and collaborative quality. For example, instead of making the strategy alone, he will gather the idea of all brilliant workers to increase the productivity of the organisation.

    Read More

  • Weak, Ineffective Leadership

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    A leader sets the tone for those they supervise. Having a weak or ineffective leadership style turns what could be a productive organization into one that lacks direction, is chaotic, and fails to live up to its potential. Incompetent central leadership can also cause a power struggle amongst the other remaining team members. Groups seek leadership; when leaders fail to use their powers others will maneuver to use the power left in the void. This can lead to a power-struggle and backstabbing (Morgan, 2007).

    Read More

  • Literature Review on Fraud/White Collar Crime, Organizations, and Individuals

    1800 Words  | 4 Pages

    Champion, D 2011, ‘White-collar crimes and organizational offending: An integral approach’, International Journal of Business, Humanities, and Technology, vol. 1 no. 3, pp. 34-35.

    Read More

  • A Company's Code of Ethics

    1736 Words  | 4 Pages

    Weissmann, A. B. (2007). White-collar defendants and white-collar crimes. The Yale Law Journal Pocket Part.

    Read More

  • Ineffective And Effective Leadership

    1470 Words  | 3 Pages

    Organizations have leaders who are effective and ineffective. Many of us want to be leaders but, do we have what it takes to be effective or are we going to be ineffective. Leaders are people who build their organization and employees up. Ineffective leaders are those who only care about getting a check. This paper will discuss effective and ineffective leaders. The effective and ineffective leaders I have had the pleasure to work with.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Charismatic Leader

    842 Words  | 2 Pages

    He ensures to practice humility, by not imposing authority, but instead being open to feedback and empower his employees by different means such as giving them flexibility and freedom to explore new ideas. He is known to be very approachable and listens without condescension or interruption. A classic example is, according to his employees, his meetings always kick start by announcing recent team achievements and appreciating their accomplishments. Last but not the least, he never fails to inspire his people by showing he has their backs even during times of crisis, remains open minded when receiving feedback and always ensures to make time to talk to his employees and hear their grievances. He is quoted

    Read More

More about A Personal Experience with Bad Leadership

Open Document