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Leadership Inspirations – Incompetence Begets Incompetence
“Incompetency begets incompetency. The last thing a guy who isn’t sure of himself wants is a guy backing him up who is sure of himself.”
Lee Iacocca
former President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board, Chrysler Corporation
The sad fact is that this situation occurs all too often. Instead of nurturing their rising stars, insecure executives and managers feel their positions and reputations are threatened by these top performers and act to:
- take personal credit for the rising star’s performance output and results
- hide the star performer from the view of other executives and managers by preventing their participation in cross disciplinary initiatives, public presentations, and interaction with other executives and managers
- diminish the star’s performance evaluation ratings with claims that the star intimidates seniors and/or is too aggressive
These behaviors disenfranchise star performers; resulting in reduced output and elevated attrition. The net result, of course, is diminished organizational performance and value creation, the exact opposite of what the executive or manager is charged to achieve.
Insecure executives and managers fail to recognize that they are not competing with their subordinates. Executives and managers are evaluated on their ability to lead others to the achievement of superior results, their subordinates on their ability to perform the tasks from which those results are derived. Therefore, subordinates’ superior performance does not place executives and managers at risk. To the contrary, a subordinate’s superior performance is often attributed to the capable leadership of the individual’s manager. Competent executives and managers understand this concept and surround themselves with superstar performers. Incompetent and insecure executives and managers do not recognize this fact and subsequently surround themselves with even less competent subordinates; condemning themselves and their organizations to inferior performance.
StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag posts on the StrategyDriven website.
and Associate Professor at Cornell University where he teaches organizational behavior, negotiation, and leadership, shares with us his insights regarding:
The cliche 'if everything is a priority, nothing is' couldn't describe a more damaging situation than when it occurs pervasively throughout an organization. All too often, organizations and their divisions, departments, and workgroups work from priority lists that have neither been reconciled nor aligned.
Podcast and website reviewers praised us for our bold Traditional Black look. However, several StrategyDriven readers told us they had difficulty reading white text on a black background.
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