Top 10 qualities of a great leader, 10 signs of a great manager, how to be a great leader, top leadership qualities – there are numerous articles on the good and bad traits of managers and leaders. We read these and at times puff up our chest with pride, mark a note to work on a trait or simply dismiss some of them.

So how does one identify a good leader? Is it the job tittle – Director, Senior VP? Is it the pulse surveys? Or how quickly the person gets promoted?

In my belief and short experience in the corporate world, to start with, a Leader has a strong foundation of morals, ethics and principles. A humble foundation of these three quintessential intertwined ingredients is often what differentiates the Greats from the worst. Add to this mix a dash of humility, willingness to see new perspectives and a dash of ego – excess ego will lead to an ego maniac; and you will have the start of a winning formula. Of course other skills such as creating leaders, risk taking, excellent communication and negotiation must be added to complete the magic potion.

Somehow the core ingredients – morals, ethics and principles are slowly becoming as rare as common sense. While books, articles and management Gurus speak about the importance of a leader putting their self-interest on the back burner, in today’s lightning fast rat race wisdom from these sources is quickly forgotten and the question often asked is “what is in it for me”.  “Leader” is equated with a job tittle and personal success. Arrogance prevails in the name of self-confidence and back stabbing is justified with the notion of “playing the corporate game”. Ridiculous high school statements such as Don’t hate the player, hate the game or Quit the playing field if it is too tough are heard over and over like broken records.

To an extent I believe the root of this problem is “Leaders” more often or not are people who have been appointed a position of authority based on Senior Management’s perception. There is an excellent article by Atul Mathur “How Bullshitters Not Just Survive But Thrive, Untill..”  – it speaks about how these some of these folks come into existence and even thrive. It is disheartening to realise that by the time these people are identified and removed it is a little too late. They already have followers who have cloned the behaviour of these “Hollow Leaders”. The vicious cycle continues.

Hollow Leaders are detrimental to not just a BU but to the entire organisation. Their insecurity masked in their arrogance coupled with an insane belief that the purpose of the team’s existence is only for their growth spreads like plague. Snap decisions that quantify an old virus “what will benefit me”, rule of follow me or take a hike – the door is to your left, hiring and firing for empire building and retaining of mediocre talent so that the Hollow Leader looks “intelligent” is norm. These toxic leaders lead to a toxic culture because people start to emulate them. Youngsters sadly eye this person as their role model. He/She was a VP at 35. I will be a VP at 30.

An in your face trait of these hollow leaders is that they seem to have a firm belief that apart from them everybody is a fool. That is in fact not true at all. There are not so subtle signs in the team if you start to stray on the path of a Hollow Leader or if there is one of these geniuses “leading”. Distrust within the team, people will start to skip 1:1s, the entire team is a sir/maam/ yes sir/maam crowd, when you ask “any questions” there is that deadly silence, nobody proposes new solutions or foresees issues, watercooler gossip is about lack of faith in the management team. In my experience another symptom is the decline in this so called leader’s basic understanding of English. Telling and Asking become synonyms and the team slowly learns that when the so called leader is “Asking” you he/she is actually “Telling” you. At the end of the day you end up with an army blind by choice doing as they are told. As General Colin Powell once rightly said “The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” 

Amazingly these Hollow Leaders view their own children as the shining definition of intelligence, grace and morality. They expect “fairness” when it comes to the success of their children. A bit hypocritical isn’t it? If we create a world of arrogance, ego maniacs and back stabbers complimented by silent bystanders, how can we expect the next generation to enter a world of rainbows and unicorns?

The corporate world is not all bleak but the slow death of selflessness and a strong “I me myself” trailer seen quite often is worrying. This pink elephant is not new. It has been around for a while. The challenge is, people are so used to the elephant that they either chose to ignore it or follow the old adage – if you can’t beat them, join them. My 2 cents to improve civility and trust, each one of us needs to point out the elephant and say no when we see something unethical, immoral, something that strips us of the tittle of a human. It does not matter whether you are college fresher, an experienced IC, manager or an exec. Raising a voice to not just correct others but also to correct yourself. Another ability that seems to die when arrogance rides high in these Hollow Leaders is the Self Reflection. Till you do not raise your voice, self-reflect and self-correct we will continue to see these Hollow Leaders. Last but not least, let’s stop referring to people as “Leaders” based on their job tittle.

I have been told that I am a dreamer living in a Utopian world. To that comment I sign off with famous words from John Lenon “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us”