Why Mediocre Leaders Succeed...

Back in June I posed a question about what kind of leadership we were really looking for in our organizations today.  For me this question reflected disillusionment between what management literature - and most of us being led - identify as the desired characteristics of our leaders and the all too common reality we experience that falls short of these expectations.  In other posts - primarily focused on political leaders - I have been able to highlight some of these failed leader scenarios.  If we all desire to be led by a Level 5 leader as identified by leadership guru Jim Collins then why does it seem so often that we fail to recruit or develop such leaders for our organizations?  How do we
continue to "allow" less than stellar and even destructive leaders to continue to rise to the top.

At the time of my June post I received relatively few answers.  I certainly got a lot of affirmation from the personal experience of others as they navigated their frustrating array of challenging leaders.  But "misery loves company" did not make for resolution.

It was only this past week that a glimmer of light came to me through a somewhat unexpected source.  As some of you might know I'm a voracious reader.  Not just for business-related material but rather a quite eclectic array of literature - Astronomy, Foreign Policy, Military History Quarterly, National Geographic, Triathlete, The Economist, science fiction, a lot of history of almost any nature, and biographies of historical figures.  Every once in a while I find a gem in these readings that I can relate to a current business or leadership challenge.   

The source of this insight is bound to lead some of you, or all of you, to wonder if I've gone off the deep end.  Or merely confirmed your suspicion of that truth all along.  So before going there I'm going to go back to Jim Collins for an answer.  For without perhaps saying it directly he touched on my dilemma as he described what a Level 5 Leader looked like.

My understanding of a Level 5 Leader is one who is unassuming and ambitious for their organization rather than for themselves.  This contrasts sharply with the character and behavior of leaders we may commonly find at the pinnacle of many organizations - those that present as charismatic and larger than life and are DEFINITELY ambitious, but for their own personal gain.  So should we - or more particularly me - be surprised that these are the leaders I encounter too often and am left uninspired by?  They are geared and driven to get to the top to achieve their personal ends whereas Level 5 Leaders - because they are more ambitious for the success of their organization - are more inclined to sublimate their personal achievements in deference to organizational goals.  In my assessment, they are far more inclined to be humble and self-sacrificing than their more ambitious counterparts and as a result are more likely to be overlooked for leadership roles.

So now here comes my highly controversial and perhaps overreaching insight from a very different source of information.  I recently completed a book authored by Sebastian Haffner in 1978 and translated from it's original German in 1979.  This analysis of a prominent historical figure of our time was entitled "The Meaning of Hitler".

Right off the mark you might now question how I could at all reasonably tie an assessment of Hitler's reign to that of anybody in a leadership role today.  What possible insight could I have gleaned from a book analyzing the actions of a genocidal megalomaniac?  Simply this.  Haffner analyzed both Hitler's successes and achievements and contrasted that against his failures and defeat.  What he concluded from both was that the rise and fall in Hitler's fortune was not as a result of any physical, mental, emotional, intellectual or other change in Hitler himself.  He suggests that Hitler was quite dogmatic and unwavering in pursuit of his ends and the means to achieve those ends.  Rather, Haffner states, "[The] key lies not in any changes in Hitler.  It lies in the change and alternation of the opponents with whom Hitler had to deal."  He goes on to say "Successes always involve two [people] - and the success of one is the failure of the other.  Given constant strength one can be successful against a weaker opponent and unsuccessful against a stronger one...Hitler's successes and failures become instantly explicable if one turns one's attention away from Hitler and towards his opponents at the times in question." (underline is my emphasis).

In short Hitler only succeeded as a leader when he faced weak opposition, when he faced weak leaders - Chamberlain, Daladier, and others within and outside of Germany - in the years leading up to World War II.  After the invasion and subjugation of Poland, and most definitively after 1941 and declarations of war on the Soviet Union and the United States, Hitler faced a decidedly different calibre of leaders in the form of Churchill, De Gaulle, Stalin and Roosevelt.  He ultimately was defeated even though his character and tactics had not changed at all from those that had led to his early, spectacular successes.

This may seem like a somewhat belabored point but the insight I gained from this unlikely source is that mediocre leaders, poor leaders or destructive leaders succeed not so much by what they do but by what we ourselves fail to do.  If we desire different leadership we must have the courage to look for it, to ask for it, demand it and support leaders that will inspire us to some more noble goals and achievements.

If the collective WE fails to exert our own expectations and standards for the type of leadership we desire than we likely deserve the hand we are dealt.  Misery may love company but it's no recipe for success.
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Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
Executive Coach/Consultant
BreakPoint Solutions
gregh@breakpoint.solutions
780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.