November 8, 2006

Why Do Successful Leaders Fail?

Understanding Derailment

Many in the Christian community were shocked this past week by the revelations regarding Ted Haggard, founder and pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs and president of the National Association of Evangelicals. The respected leader fell within a matter of hours of the news breaking of his sexual immorality. He joins a growing list of religious, political, and business leaders whose failures have increasingly populated the news headlines.

The leadership literature often calls these debacles “derailment”, a term that addresses a wide range of behaviors resulting in career failures or setbacks. Most of the research addresses the professional or organizational causes of derailment. Many of these causes – wrong role-fit, poor team composition, lack of preparation for the leadership role, lack of industry knowledge, poor decision-making skills, etc. – can be practically addressed. (However, I have observed that most individuals and organizations have a long way to go in preparing people for leadership.) When people derail from professional or organizational causes, they can often get back on track, unless one chooses not to learn from his or her mistakes. We have all faced these moments at some point in our careers.

But Haggard’s case, like Enron, MCI Worldcom and Abu Grhaib, is what I would call a “fatal derailment.” The people responsible for these failures will not and cannot make a full comeback because these failures stem from a collapse of integrity and character. These are the foundational pillars of trust, without which no one can lead.

I’ve observed four prominent scenarios that lead to fatal derailment:

The first is arrogance. This may be the root of all derailment. Though we need to be secure and confident, we cross the line when we determine that we are absolutely superior to others. Leona Helmsley was noted to have said to one of the maids at her hotel, “Did you know that only the little people pay taxes?”

Christ is the preeminent example of humility who didn’t regard “equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.” (Philippians 2:6-7, New International Version) The apostle Paul urged readers “Don’t try to act big. Don’t try to get into the good graces of important people, but enjoy the company of ordinary folks. And don’t think you know it all!” (Romans 12:16, The Living Bible)

Solomon, reputedly the wisest and richest man who ever lived warned, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18, New International Version)

The second is aloneness. It’s lonely at the top, but this can lead to isolation, even bizarre extremes of isolation like Howard Hughes. Isolation causes us to lose contact with those we serve and with those who could help us through accountability, feedback and counsel. It also causes us to lose touch with reality and enter into a world of our own fantasy. Once we reach this point, how can we lead and serve effectively? We are created to live in vital interdependence and relationship with others. God Himself said that “it is not good for man to be alone.” Leaders who increasingly isolate themselves from others are stepping toward fatal derailment.

The third is the master of the universe complex. This is a close relative to arrogance. It manifests itself through an addiction to the adrenalin of pushing the limits and bending the rules. We feel that we are smarter, better, and more clever than anyone else, so we beat everyone by playing the game according to our own rules. We get a rush beating the poor foolish souls who grind away on their small little game boards as pawns. We push to see what we can get away with. It’s a big game that we play against competitors, the government, and everyone around us.

The past decades have seen our share of these game-players fall: the Hunts and the silver market, the S&L scandals, Levine and Milken and their junk bonds, and the latest “smartest guys in the room” – Skilling and Lay.

The Scriptures are pretty clear about how all this will end. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction” (Galatians 6:7-8, New International Version)

The fourth is adultery. I won’t even bother to list all the people this has affected. Adultery is too prevalent, too easy to rationalize, and too easy to deny. Our most important leaders may wag their fingers at us on television, yet (incredibly) deny what they’ve done. Adultery attacks the basis of trust. If we betray the most intimate and significant of human relationships, what makes us think that we can be trusted in other relationships?

Some months ago, a seminar participant angrily debated me on this point. I was taken aback by the depth of his anger. His point was that many great leaders had been adulterers and that it had not impacted their ability to do great things on a historic scale.

My response? First of all, no leader or person is perfect.

Second, God is constantly using very broken and imperfect people, even people who don’t acknowledge His existence, to accomplish His purposes in human history. A courageous general or world leader may make decisions that defeat threatening enemies in spite of what is going on in their private lives; however, ongoing adultery will erode trust over time.

Third, greatness is not the same as goodness. By the grace of God, we might make a comeback of sorts, but it won’t be with the same influence or capacity.

Fourth, what might those great leaders have accomplished without such a moral failing?

And lastly, most of us do not fit into the category of “great.” We are ordinary people with ordinary spheres of influence. Our lives are woven into a more intimate web of relationships with people who see us each day and count on us each day. On this scale, trust is so important, and the betrayal of that trust is truly devastating.

For all of us, the bottom line is that we must take heed, lest we, too, fall.

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And How You Can Avoid Them

Though the advice in this book seems so basic in a universe of over-hyped business books, I am amazed that the same errors are still being made. Coach John Wooden was right when he said that “excellence is the superlative execution of the basics.” Coach Wooden would take his All-Americans each year and begin the opening practice session by showing them how to put on their socks and shoes. And maybe, whether we are new to managing people or are seasoned leaders, it helps to go back over the basics. This is what Steven Brown does in this book.

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When People Become Things

The Danger of Our Networking Way of Life

When I was a student, a very prominent businessman shared this passage with me and it’s stuck with me for all these years:

“Work happily together. Don’t try to act big. Don’t try to get into the good graces of important people, but enjoy the company of ordinary folks. And don’t think you know it all!”
— Romans 12:16, The Living Bible

This hit me again recently as I observe the tendency in our always-on, networking world to view our relationships in very utilitarian ways. I’ve sensed it in interactions with other businessmen who unconsciously communicate to me that I’m not worth enough or connected enough to be of help to them. Having reached that conclusion about me, they seem to look through me to the person they really want to connect with.

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The Power of Calling in a World of Infinte Choices

Is choice inherently bad? Of course not. Most options are inconsequential (who cares how many different colored socks I wear, aside from my wife and daughters?). But pushed to an extreme, where we begin to feel there must always be some better option, if we just wait it out, we learn to delay rather than commit. This is not patience; it is aloofness. We learn to hold out for the better offer instead of acting on the basis of our calling. In the end we forget that it’s not about what others do for us in the form of multiple options, but what we do for others by making responsible choices that honor God.

Choice, absent character and calling, becomes selfish entitlement. It becomes all about me. Choice, full of character and calling, can change my life and the lives of those around me. It becomes all about my ability to trust God and serve others.