Few will argue that the leadership of any organisation starts at the top. The problem is it can also just as easily end there, for CEOs and MDs can soon lose their relevance – their appropriateness to lead in the current circumstances and time.

The US work union leader, Nikolas Klien, in addressing members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union in 1918[1] succinctly outlined leadership relevance in saying that: ‘First they ignore you; then they ridicule you; then they attack you; and then they build monuments to you.’ As heroic as Klien portrayed leadership he could just as easily have said the very opposite and to parody him: ‘First there maybe success; people follow you; then they begin to doubt you; and then they ignore you.’

The ancient Greeks well understood the transitory nature of leadership where the initial success of many leaders can quickly dissipate into ‘hubris’ – a behaviour that plays out over a period of time with an ending that can be costly to not just the perpetrator, the leader, but those who are close, the followers.

A recurring theme of hubris throughout history relates to power and specifically the pride and arrogance that this can foster in leaders who then take for granted that they can ‘break the rules’. Recent corporate history has a number of such examples such in Enron, Lehman Brothers, Royal Bank of Scotland, etc., (see ‘CEOs and Divine Right’, blog post July 2018).

The Ancient Greeks thought that the longer the tenure the greater the potential for ‘hubris’ to occur, which would intuitively sit with the three businesses and their leaders named above. However, research published in 2013[2] on CEO tenure concluded that the longer the tenure the more the leader became risk averse and slower in adapting to change.

Risk aversion and slowness to adapt to change are not in themselves features of hubris but are two themes of the leadership malaise of ‘myopia’ that impacts organisational effectiveness and performance that can potentially lead to ‘hubris’ (see ‘Relevance, Obsolescence, Learning, and Adaptability’ blog post, 30th March, 2018).

‘Myopia’ is where the leader ‘short-sights’ themselves to what is going on around them in the business through easily getting caught up in minutiae; favouring some parts of their role to the detriment of others; losing sight of the mission; and becoming removed and remote from their people and customers.

For instance, failure to understand and learn what is going on around the business - the external environment - is a critical leadership requirement with the authors of the research in 2013[3] finding that the longer the tenure of the CEO the more they ignored the external environment in particular the customer and the more they relied upon the internal flow of information. This can be shortsighted.

In 1989 Sidney Yoshida produced a study that he named ‘The Iceberg of Ignorance’[4] in which he significantly found that leadership at the top was hardly aware of the real problems of the organisation they led with Yoshida saying that: ‘They were only aware of the tip of the iceberg not the majority of it hidden below the waterline’.

Yoshida’s findings through his work with a Japanese car manufacturer was that 100% of front-line problems were known to the front-line employees; some 74% to team leaders; a further 9% to middle-management; and just 4% to top management. Whether the actual figures were accurate at the time is open to question but what is relevant to today is the significant message behind the figures: the importance of leaders not just being connected to their workers but crucially to the customer.

A few years after Yoshida’s research the BBC in 1997 introduced a reality TV series, ‘Back to the Floor’, in which CEOs went back to the shop floor in a business ‘entry level’ role through which they would learn how their company works; understand the business and market sector; and what their employees as well as their customers think of them and the business. Despite the considerable learning the CEOs experienced in this 5-year series and in a subsequent similar show, ‘Undercover Boss’ on Channel 4 from 2009-2014, the importance of ‘connecting’ with employees and customers appears not to be on the CEO radar. Research in 2018 with a group of CEOs revealed that on average they spent just 5% of their ‘meeting time’ with employees and only 3% with customers[5].

If unchecked or unchallenged ‘myopia’ can become menacing and in the courts of Kings and Queens in history it was common for humour through a Jester to be used as a way of sending ‘messages’ to the leader and followers avoid the onset of ‘myopia’.

Corporate boardrooms today are unfortunately not places for Jesters but they should be places where corporate ‘myopia’ can be kept in check through the use of experienced outside consultants who challenge assumptions and identify the weaknesses in the business. Such a move requires humility, a rare feature of successful people and companies, but it is a powerful counterpoint to its opposite – arrogance and the potential of ‘hubris’.

‘Sandpaper Leadership’© 2018 is an approach based in optimising and sustaining organisational performance (see ‘Sandpaper and Change’, blog post June 2018)

[1] Klien, N. (1918) Documentary History of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America: 1916-1918. Quote from the Proceedings of the Third Biennial Convention, Baltimore, Maryland, May 13th-May 18th, 1918, pp 51 – 53 (quote page 53), Google Books.

[2] Lou, X., Kanuri, V.K.; and Andrews, M. (2013) ‘Long CEO Tenure Can Hurt Performance’, Harvard Business Review, March 2013.

[3] Lou, X., Kanuri, V.K.; and Andrews, M. (2013) ‘How Does CEO Tenure Matter: The Mediating Role of Firm-Employee and Firm-Customer Relationships.’ (2013) Strategic Management Journal, John Wiley Online Library, DOI: 10.1002/smj.2112

[4] Yoshida, S. (1989) ‘The Iceberg of Ignorance of Higher Level Management on the Basis of Quality Improvement and TQC Management at Calsonic of Japan and Overseas’, study presented at ‘The 2nd International Quality Symposium, Mexico City, 1989.

[5] Porter, M.E., and Nohira, N. (2018) ‘How CEOs Manage Time’, Harvard Business Review, July-August Issue, 2018.