Power and Leadership

I recently worked for a company that had a senior leader who acted in a manner that was like a bull in a China store. It wasn't that he focused on abusing the supervisors and being the hero of the line workers, instead, his manner was abuse for all equally. I found it an amazing leadership style and also I vowed never to become a part of his team. Instead, I had the unique ability to observe his methods, the results, and his teams' responses to his leadership tangentially. Whenever that tangent took me too close to his sphere of influence I found myself affected in very negative ways so I always made sure to keep my distance.

His seemed to be a leadership style that revolved around the quick win with no thought to what might happen in the long-term to the employees, the business, nor the morale. To make a long story shorter, that senior leader is no longer with the company but has moved on to become a CEO of another company in the same industry. He left behind in his wake quite a bit of destruction in terms of operations that can not be completed at the price he negotiated, personnel who are lost in terms of how to successfully do their jobs, and low morale by his teams who must stay with the company he left. 

All this being said, I was amazed by the short-term gain and the long-term gain. It reminded me of the constant feed of news stories from the early 2000's that described how CEO's and boards were wrecking large companies and organizations for the long-term, but taking huge short-term payoffs for one or two years worth of significant upticks in stock prices or profitable returns. At that time it seemed everyone was in it for the quick win. This is exactly how this senior leader I describe above viewed the world. 

Lately, thankfully, I feel we see less and less of this short term gain style of thinking. Part of this could be attributed to leaders looking for more ways to inspire long term retention within their employee base. I feel that leaders look after their employees and mimic what they see from their employees. If employees are looking for a quick buck and move quickly from job to job, you'll see that reflected in the leadership. Perhaps its a vicious circle with arrows going both ways. But in the recruiting world I used to occupy we saw a distinct movement toward greater job security by the employees we recruited in recent years (most likely brought on by kids watching their families deal with the financial downturn in our industry in 2009 and 2010 and not wanting to deal with that type of turbulence). I wonder what kids who have to watch their parents through the pandemic years will ask for from their jobs when they become a part of the workforce and how leaders will adapt to that desire from them.