Leaders are like a loaf of bread on a baker’s shelf; they both have a ‘sell date’.
Leaders and bread are perishable goods; they both can, and do, go ‘out of date’.
Out of date bread bread is of no use to a baker but nor is a leader to an organisation who is ‘out of date’; both are stale.
Both bread and leaders are ‘consumer’ goods.
The primary consumer of a leader is principally, but not exclusively, their followers.
Thinking of a leader through the lens of a consumer is powerful way of evaluating leader effectiveness and is what both unconsciously and consciously many followers are doing every day.
The consumer evidence is not good for:
Only 10% of employees are reportedly engaged in their work in Western Europe with some 71% being ‘not engaged’ and some 19% ‘actively disengaged[1];
Some 75% of employees consider their direct manager - their leader -to be the ‘worst part of their job’ and 65% ‘would happily take a pay cut if they could replace their current boss with someone better’[2]; and
Some 43% pf employees report management style as the second major contributor to stress after ‘heavy workloads’ (62%) attributable to poor management in the workplace[3].
There are also other consumers involved in leader ‘shelf life’: customers, suppliers, as well as shareholders, with the higher you go up the corporate hierarchy the problem seemingly exacerbates.
Shareholders have been increasingly addressing the issue of top leaders who are past their ‘sell date’ with CEO tenure in the UK having been falling year-on-year since 2013 from nearly 6 years down to currently some 4.8 years.[4]
Is five years the ‘shelf-life’ of a leader?
This figure might actually be generous, for leaders in an organisation are like bread on a shelf – they may on the surface appear good but on the inside, not as fresh as they look.
Research on managerial incompetence in corporate life supports this, for incompetence is estimated to range from 30% to 75% with the average level of poor leadership being around 50%[5].
Bread on a baker’s shop shelf is losing its freshness every minute it sits there and in a fast changing and increasing complex business environment, the skills of a leader are similarly a fast depreciating commodity.
Whilst many leaders renew their mobile phone, computer, and their car on a regular basis they do not think to do the same with their leadership skills. After all, why should they: they are successful, that is why they have their position and role – they have an inflated and consequently deluded opinion of their own skills and competence[6].
Such leaders are unaware of the widening gap of how they perceive themselves and have no appreciation of how others may perceive them: they lack self-awareness and ominously possess a skewed mindset.
Mindset is extremely influential, for it determines how an individual thinks about and interprets situations; their emotional reactions; the decisions they make; and actions they take. Mindset determines the quality of their relationships; the interactions they have; and crucially in this context the way they lead.
Data from the ‘Beliefs and Attitudes Mindset Questionnaire’©[7] is a revealing way of looking at leader effectiveness. The highest scoring construct is that of self-expectancy - ‘an individual’s expectations of what they want and their desire to make this happen’. However the discipline and belief, the confidence, they need to realise their goals and importantly grow are the joint lowest scoring constructs of the eight. It is not surprising that self-awareness scores are at best moderate and probably optimistic.
To put it simply, these are leaders with a poor mindset about self, let alone the mindset required to effectively lead others. The data supports the view that on average at least some 50% leaders are poor, [8] what we may call ‘stale’ or past their ‘sell date’.
The 50% of poor leaders may be higher percentage but of course you are now telling yourself that whatever the percentile may be, this does not include you.
Beware.
Research shows that ‘90% of people think that they’re self-aware. But the real figure is closer to 10%-15%.’ Dr Tasha Eurich who carried out the research thoughtfully adds, ‘I always joke that on a good day, 85% of us are lying to ourselves about whether we’re lying to ourselves.’[9]
Furthermore, other research shows that when individuals are less self-aware the teams in which they were members substantially suffered and that where a team is comprised of people who over-rater their capabilities, team success was cut in half.[10]
In today's social media media world the reputation of a baker can rest on the perceived quality of one consumer purchase.
The effectiveness of a team or organisation ultimately rests with one person; a leader and how they are perceived.
Like bread the best leaders are 'fresh'.
The ‘Beliefs and Attitudes Mindset Questionnaire’© has been created to help people understand how their beliefs and attitudes impact their effectiveness and what they can change and develop to heighten their performance as leaders, sales people, team members, and in most fields in life. The online questionnaire can be purchased for internal use or facilitated online for individuals or groups.
[1] Gallup (2017) ‘State of the Global Workplace’ Gallup Press, NY p.24
[2] Chamorrow-Premuzic, T. & Murphy, M. (2017) ‘When Leaders are Hired for Talent but Hired for Not Fitting In’ Harvard Business Review, 14th June 2017
[3] CIPD (20219) ‘The Rise in Stress at Work Linked to Poor Management’ CIPD, 9th April 2019
[4] Strategy& (2017) ‘19th Strategy & CEO Success Study’ Strategy+Business (a part of PwC), 15th May 2019
[5] Hogan, R. & Kaiser, R. (2005) ‘What we know about leadership’ Review of General Psychology, 9 (2), pp 169-180
[6] Nowack, K. (1992) ‘Self-assessment and rater-assessment as a dimension of management development’ Huma Resources development Quarterly, 3, pp 141-145
[7] ‘Statistics from the Beliefs and Attitudes Mindset Questionnaire’ July 2019
[8] Op Cit. Hogan, R. & Kaiser, R. (2005)
[9] Dr Tasha Eurich from interview with Melissa Dahl (2017): ‘Do you have any idea what other people think of you’ published in ‘The Cut’, 8th May 2017, NY based upon published research in: Eurich, T. (2017) ‘Insight: How to Succeed by Seeing Yourself Clearly’ Crown Business, imprint of Crown Publishing Group, NY
[10] Dierdoff, Eric C. & Rubin, Robert S. (2015) ‘Research: We’re Not Very Self-Aware, Especially at Work’ Harvard Business Review, 12th March, 2015