The Good, the Bad, and the Egotist.

How Misguided Leaders Undermine Their Teams

An excessively Orange book landed on my desk, just as I was writing a response to one of our service providers on a new project that we had embarked on.

The title of this overly noticeable book – “This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See” by Seth Godin, was well thought through as the colour did the title and contents justice.

As I began reading it, I realised that it is an absolutely brilliant book, however after devouring it in little less than two days, a number of ironies started to filter through into my reality that I just couldn’t shake. Something was just not right in this utopia I was led to believe I had entered into.

As the hero of the story, let’s call this little gem of a book ‘The Good.’

THE GOOD…

The book speaks about creating a ‘culture’ behind the product, highlighting empathy, connection and trust and incorporating all of this into any product or service that we create. This is what the leadership in the company wanted me to spearhead on this project.

He goes on to encourage us to focus on serving a specific audience, understanding who they are, where they come from and what moves them or drives their behaviour and a short summary of the important parts of what he says are highlighted below:

• Invent something worth making.
• Design it in a way that a few people will love.
• Tell a story that resonates with the smallest viable market.
• Spread the word.
• Show up consistently to lead and build trust.

Throughout these five headings the concept of ‘word-of-mouth’ appears to me regularly like a beacon linking to so many of my own beliefs that a good product will be spoken about and drive your marketing more than any half naked supermodel with a flashy smile and cheesy script.

The ultimate message, effective marketing is about making positive change and improving lives, not just making a profit.

After careful consideration, and a bit of synchonicity, the company and I parted ways and much to my relief.

THE BAD…

Ironically, the company culture and leadership lacked the very principles that were enshrined in the book that I had been given to follow as a blue print for our project.

In fact over time and to my shock, I came to see events as they unfolded, and had they happened in the companies that I had previously worked in, these events would have ended up in legal courtcases and significant fines and payouts in favour of the employees.

The most glaring irony for me was the title, ‘you can’t be seen, until you learn to see’.

This little treasure was given to me by the very leadership that never really asked me for my personal or professional input on the product. There were opportunities over the few months that I worked there to make my opinions known, and although the efforts were made, they were never acknowledged or discussed in detail and from the start our misalignment was as glaring as a disco ball at a funeral.

At some point in time, as anyone who has worked with me will tell you, the question of ‘who is our client?’ comes up. And when asked in this case the answer that was given to me was so wide ranging and vague, that it could apply to almost anyone in a general financial demographic — that was it.

No mention of age, gender, education, location, occupation, hobbies, ideology or even which of the various platforms we would use to market to them.

How do you not even consider these parameters? It is a pretty expansive list of things NOT to be curious about for anyone who wants to create a product let alone market it.

As a whole, the company culture and leadership were as blind as a bat, wearing sunglasses and earmuffs, navigating the Sahara desert.

What’s more, toxic cultures are like arrogant, ignorant people. They are oblivious to their predicament, unaware of either arrogance nor ignorance, and those of unfotunate enough to be around them pay the price and bear the brunt of the after effects.

This usually looks like a staff compliant of non-questioning monkeys typing away, oblivious and disinterested with a high staff turnover, and lots of snacks and company events that nobody actually attends.

This is why I like to call this environment ‘The Bad,’ because any toxic culture cannot be anything but bad.

Bad for the company, bad for the leadership and especially bad for the people who work there and their families who often get to see them less than their co-workers do.

Now we come to the last of our thematic concepts, ‘The Egotist.’

AND THE EGOTIST

It should be clear that the thematic reference that is being made in this article is in line with the epic masterpiece by Sergio Leone, ‘Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo ortherwise known as ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’, however in this case I am using poetic license to substitute the last character with ‘the Egotist.’ as this is the main reason for my article.

In my humble opinion, through the course of my lengthy time in numerous companies, corporate environments, and having dealt with thousands of people both professionally and personally, I can honestly say that egotists make the worst friends, leaders and mentors.

This character type has one goal in mind, themselves.

A leader with this character type could be intelligent, assertive and seemingly generous. They could make claims like ‘at [insert company name] we want to uplift people do good!’

And they really believe it!

The idea that people in the world look to profit far too much, companies don’t invest in their staff and have a responsibility to uplift the environment and the people in it so that everyone benefits.

It is political rhetoric, that is all it is.

The same individual probably drives the latest gas guzzling non eco-friendly SUV, with all the trimmings and comforts. When parking their behemoth, they park across two parking spaces, just in case someone opens their door on their fancy little vanity piece.

If you have ever needed to get to the bank in your lunch hour, found no parking apart from a small pavement space at the back which might end up in a ticket and barely make it back in time to your next meeting, you would understand the frustration of seeing a idio-mobile parked accross two spaces and feel the rage burn.

How very thoughtful of these people, how very uplifting of the environment and don’t they make certain to look out for their fellow man.

It get’s worse.

These are the leaders who cry valiantly that their staff should go on training courses to improve their skills. How curious it is that often these very courses are hosted by friends and acquintances, at a discount, and with certain benefits to the company.

After months of research, countless excel spreadsheets and calculations, competitor analysis and suggestions on strategy and planning, very little of what I actually did was used.

The psychological profile of an egotist describes a person with an inflated sense of self-importance and a constant need to assert their own superiority. Egotists typically display traits such as excessive self-confidence, a lack of empathy, and a propensity to dominate conversations by continually redirecting them to focus on themselves. They are driven by an unquenchable desire to highlight their own significance, frequently ignoring the needs and emotions of those around them.

Many leaders are self aware of their short comings, and they work to counter balance these by ‘being generous’ with books and courses and corporate lingo about building up employees and giving them space to create their own roadmap.

But in reality, when their ego is affected, they revert back to bullying, manipulation and controlling the narrative either through ignoring the problem, or silencing those who try to speak up about them.

Leaders like this justify their bad behaviour by overcompensating to their staff and they pander to their ego by justifying their actions as ‘doing good’ and ‘uplifting individuals’.

Ask any person who has been the subject of abuse, physical or emotional why they stayed and they will most probably refer to some story about kindness, or gifts that they were given as an apology, or that one time their partner smiled at them and made them feel special and said they would never do it again.

The same applies to a toxic environment — escaping it is hard.

It’s like a cattle ranch where staff are constantly driven silently into their little cubicles and made to work in the same way as they have always worked, taking care not to do anything that directly impacts leadership, or their image while the ‘good doggies’ are given treats and verbal pats on the head.

How do these environments come to exist?

Money?

Power?

What is the honey in the trap that lures people into working under these conditions for leaders such as this?

It’s hope.

The ‘Egotists’ peddle hope in exchange for servitude and the ability to torment their flock emotionally and mentally, with their games, their desires and delusions of being ‘The Best!” or ‘the most innovative’’ when in reality all along it has been about how good they look to others.

Many people don’t make it out unfortunately, they remain in this matrix, this Animal Farm, as the walls of negative emotion, toxic comments and condescension slowly grind closer until either they lose their confidence completely, too afraid to leave, or they in turn are let go.

If you are in an environment like this and find yourself with nobody to chat to, I will gladly listen to you.

There is always a way up through the trees to a clear blue sky and a way forward.