A real leadership for a better world
Your job is what you do, not who you are as a person
This is what every coach or psychologist will tell you.
But what happens when your work defines you?
I am leader
I can honestly say that leadership chose me.
As a matter of fact, I am the eldest of four siblings.
I used to tell my sisters & brother that our parents had me first, because they wanted perfection. And then they had other kids to repeat this perfection again and again and again. But they failed. Miserably.
In reality, my parents chose to have me first. And then they shaped me to be the perfect little human being I was supposed to become and when they believed that I was on the right path, they had other kids, so that I would become their role model.
This gives rise to two possibilities:
1) you are perfect, and your brothers and sisters follow your path, or
2) you are a total failure, but you have inspired your siblings to be better than you are.
In terms of leadership, this is a win-win situation.
So, leadership defines me.
Leadership is a privilege
Everyone occupies leadership positions at some point in their life.
Executives, managers, team leaders, sports captains, teachers, mentors, coaches, parents, older siblings are all leaders in one way or another.
If you haven’t occupied one of these positions, that means that you are probably young, and then still have the chance to do it right.
Leadership is a privilege.
When you are in a leadership role, your influence may affect the trajectories of people’s entire careers and often even their lives.
Leadership is one of my core values.
But what is a real leader?
The 6th president of the United States, John Quincy Adams, had a definition, that for me says it all.
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a real leader”.
Now, think a little.
How many times have you crossed the path of a real leader?
How many of these real leaders were your boss?
Not a lot, right?
You are powerful.
You are smart enough.
You are enough.
When you are little and your parents tell you this, you thank them because you are happy to be valued.
You are powerful.
You are smart enough.
You are enough.
When you are an adult and your parents tell you this, you perhaps dismiss them because they cannot be objective. After all , they are your parents.
You are powerful.
You are smart enough.
You are enough.
When your boss tells you this, it has the real power to influence your entire life (not just your career), and to help the company you are in to thrive.
Good leadership is good for business.
I have been lucky.
I have met real leaders, and they were my bosses
I have worked in 6 different countries, and every time, I had a real leader as a role model.
“Open your mind
Conquer the world,
Have an impact,
Train people to have an impact,
Work with smart people,
Always keep your mind open
Learn from everyone (technician or CEO)
Listen to people
and more importantly, respect people
And all of that will never prevent you from making money”
They all taught me this and this is what I have taught to my teams for the last 20 years.
Leadership is a privilege, and good leadership can help your company to thrive.
One of the companies I have worked with, had massive cash flow problems which lasted for about a year.
Over the course of one year, 45 people never received their salary on time, and in some cases, not at all.
Do you know what that means?
That means using your savings to be able to pay for your rent and food.
That means asking help to your family because you are short of money.
That means paying interest at the bank because your bank account is always under zero.
That means basically paying to go to work.
Would you, do it? Would you pay to go to work?
If I was telling you that during that year, 45 people showed up on time at work every day.
If I was telling you that 45 people managed to innovate, get new clients, develop the IP of the company, develop new processes and products to sell, despite not being paid?
If I was telling you that nobody resigned from their jobs!
Would you believe me?
That shows great leadership from the CEO, but great self-leadership from the employees as well, to step up as they did!
The CEO was a rotten manager for sure but a real leader.
We all believed in him when he empowered us to make it work.
We all felt valued when he asked for our help to make it work.
He had a vision and we believed in it.
He made us grow in a period of adversity.
And he was right.
It did work.
I did not understand what a great leader he was at the time… Until I met a corporate psychopath.
Bad leadership kills people
When you think of a psychopath, who do you think of?
Ted Bundy, who killed 35 women over the course of 5 years.
Katherine Knight who stabbed her husband to death 37 times, and then beheaded him, and draped his skin over a coat hanger?
Or maybe Charles Manson, who brain-washed his followers to commit murders all over the USA?
The common point between these murderers is that they had to endure a sad, troubled childhood, full of violence and humiliation.
But what would have happened to them if they would have been born in wealthy families? If they had had a nice background, a good education, and money during childhood?
Psychologists have demonstrated that if a psychopath is raised in a wealthy environment, he/she will figure out early that it is easier to get the prestige and the money they want from a corporate career rather than from a criminal career.
They become what psychologists call corporate psychopaths [1].
Think for a minute to someone you know in a leadership position:
Manipulative,
Disrespectful,
Abusive,
Lacking empathy,
Arrogant,
Passing blame on others,
Would rather lie than tell the truth if this for their own advantage,
Good at political networking,
In one word: Machiavellian!
And despite all of that, is still admired by senior management?
Do you recognise that person?
Is this your boss?
Do you suffer systematic sabotage?
Do you suffer threats to your reputation? Intimidation? Denigration?
If this happening to you: Run, run, run!
Corporate psychopath: a serial murderer
Corporate psychopaths go into prestigious organisations and corporations rather than criminal career.
But they are still psychopaths.
They bring the workplace harassment to a new level.
They excel in manipulation, bringing people down, to get ahead.
They keep workers under constant state of stress.
They blame subordinates for mistakes they made themselves.
They withhold crucial information to set their subordinates up to failure.
They thrive on domination over others.
They have a complete absence of empathy.
The only thing that interests them is their own interest.
12% of corporate leaders are psychopaths![2]
Because they blend in perfectly,
Like cyclists the bow down upwards and kick downwards,
They are often in positions of power and are rewarded for their psychopathic behaviour.
Corporate psychopaths do not pursue a criminal career, but they are murderers anyway.
They induce
anxiety
clinical depression
pervasive sadness
insomnia
and even suicide in their employees.
Instead of killing with a weapon,
They kill you with their words.
They kill you with their behaviours.
They make you lose your heart.
They make you lose your spirit.
They make you lose your purpose.
They do not kill you at once.
They torture you first.
And then death arrives like a liberation.
They are committing crimes daily.
But the worst part is that corporate psychopaths are rewarded for it.
They get promoted more quickly than others because they became masters in perpetuating the massive fraud they are.
And they are showing future leaders that this is OK to be that way.
Corporate psychopaths are dangerous.
I have worked for one.
Their murder weapon
Step 1: The corporate psychopath grooming
He/she makes you feel at ease.
He/she offers you presents.
He/she offers his/her help.
He/she seemed to show a real interest in you, your private life, your values, your hobbies, etc.
At this point, the corporate psychopath, is just gathering information to facilitate the bullying to come.
Step 2: The corporate psychopath observes his prey like a hunter
The way the corporate psychopath watches his prey is no different than the hunting tactic of a lion.
The corporate psychopath spots his prey weaknesses and then use them against him/her always when he/she expects it least.
The corporate psychopath invades the privacy of his prey, again and again, always uninvited.
The prey will never feel at ease but won’t be able to spot precisely what is wrong.
Step 3: The bullying
The corporate psychopath publicly always humiliates his subordinate, using personal information.
If the subordinate does not agree with him/her, he/she will become very vindictive.
The key element is how the corporate psychopath manage to isolate his prey from other colleagues, to be sure he/she won’t tell what he/she is enduring.
Step 4: A worsening health
The subordinate realises his/her health becoming worse and worse, but still feel that he/she will be able to handle it.
A slow & painful death
Little by little, the corporate psychopath destroyed his subordinate self-esteem, made him/her feel powerless, made him/her think that there are no other solutions than bearing this day after day, after day.
You are not good enough.
You are not smart enough.
You are not enough.
This is what the corporate psychopath tells his subordinate again and again
Every day
Several times a day
The fact that he/she was doing a great job, recognized by her peers does not count.
Hearing every day how worthless you are is damaging.
According to psychologists, corporate psychopaths target the most skilled people.
Because they are more skilled than them, they have the impression that they will shadow their prestige.
So, they target them.
Being morally harassed at work was unbearable.
The stress,
the fear,
the feeling of helplessness that you can’t do anything about it.
The everyday cloud of constant shame and anxiety that suffocates you self-worthiness, killed your dreams and led you to depression.
The corporate psychopath’s actions will always make you feel small and doubt yourself.
You will try to speak up and will be shamed for it.
You will try to speak up and will be ostracized for it.
You will try to speak up and will be silenced.
What do you do when you cannot fight?
What do you do when everything is done to keep you quiet?
What do you do when you cannot live your core values?
What do you when you cannot defend yourself?
What do you do when the problem is not your work but who you are as a person?
It is simple… You die.
Bad leadership is bad for business
Bad leaders lack the ability to motivate their teams, connect with their employees on a personal level, and/or command respect.
They don’t do anything to assist team members in growing, learning new skills, or taking on new tasks.
They don’t assist their employees in networking, finding mentors, or better understanding their function within the company’s strategy.
The costs:
- lack of employees engagement
- loss of skilled people
- high turnover
- lawsuits
In one word, more debts.
Leadership defines me
Let’s go back to the saying of John Quincy Adams:
“”If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a real leader”.
To be a real leader is something you need to learn.
Being surrounded by real leaders is a good way to learn it.
But real leadership starts with self-leadership.
That means that you also need to know your strengths.
And more importantly, of your limitations, and be surrounded by a team who will complement these limitations.
I believe I am a leader.
I am told I am a good one.
I know what I am good at.
And what I am not good at.
And this in all areas of my life.
Let’s take an example from my private life:
Having a sense of orientation, being able to go from A to B is not one of my strengths.
Orientation is a tool which is not activated in my brain.
I can get lost on a straight line.
I can get lost in a supermarket!
This is how bad it is.
But as a good leader, I use the strength of my team to overcome this.
In my private life, my team member is my husband.
I have married a man who does have these skills.
My husband is a living compass.
He is never ever ever lost.
He goes somewhere once, and then wherever he is leaving from, he can go back to that place eyes closed.
Sometimes, I put the address of a place we must reach into the sat-nav to be sure it is where he thinks it is.
And every single time, he has a quicker or more efficient way to go there than the sat-nav.
So when I am with him, I do not congest my brain with trying to know where I am and where we need to go. I know for sure that he will figure it out.
In a professional setting this is the same.
I hire people who can do things I cannot do.
I hire people who complement the team.
I hire people who think differently.
I create safe places, so that everyone knows he is valued.
And I empower them to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more.
And when they won’t grow anymore by staying in my team, I encourage them to move on.
Leadership is my dream job
My dream job is being a leader.
This is who I am.
Helping people grow, is my mission.
Making them discover a skill they have and did not know they did, is my vision.
Designing a more sustainable corporate world, is my purpose.
A real leadership for a better world
As an expert in corporate social responsibility, (CSR) I do believe that living in a more sustainable world encompasses people, planet, and profit.
If the leadership of a company is rotten, the business is too.
No environmentally sustainable practices, no engagement of employees, no ethical business practices, poor governance, etc.[2]
CSR cannot ignore the influence of individuals, even more when these individuals are in leadership positions.
If your actions oblige others to dream small, think small, lose their self-esteem, and become less, you should not be in a leadership position.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a REAL leader, and you can make the world better!
