{"id":4853,"date":"2015-10-10T02:19:04","date_gmt":"2015-10-10T07:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=4853"},"modified":"2015-10-10T02:19:04","modified_gmt":"2015-10-10T07:19:04","slug":"the-character-crisis-that-can-chase-people-away-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2015\/10\/10\/the-character-crisis-that-can-chase-people-away-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Character Crisis that can Chase People Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Updated from May 16, 2015 post<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>I&#8217;m connecting with leaders in Australia this week, and today a question came up that goes to the heart of authentic leadership.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A sharp leader asked, &#8220;What character traits are the biggest obstacles for leaders to overcome?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>In response, I pointed back to an insight shared by Bill Hybels earlier this year, where he underscored two deadly leadership characteristics.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Bill-Puebla.jpg\" class=\"btn-image--openpopup figure aligncenter\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Bill Puebla\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Bill-Puebla.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"384\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p>In a coaching session in Brazil, Bill talked about two qualities in leaders that will chase people away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><strong>\u201cPeople can\u2019t stand dishonesty in their leader.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As Bill talked about this, in my own notes I jotted down that the real danger is rarely in the telling of bald-face lies. For most leaders dishonesty seeps in through the most subtle of statements and actions. Some of the most common include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chronic lateness\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019ll meet you tomorrow at 9:00 am.\u201d Then you show up at 9:10.<\/li>\n<li>Some leaders will dismiss their chronic tardiness as a reflection merely of their demanding schedule. But it ultimately communicates dishonesty.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Consistent lack of follow-through\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019ll call you next week.\u201d And no call is made.<\/li>\n<li>When you consistently fail to follow through on even the smallest of commitments people come to doubt any commitment you make.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Unmitigated hyperbole\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThat was the best service\/meeting\/idea EVER!\u201d But everyone knows it was really quite average.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2014\/06\/05\/4-risks-that-exaggeration-poses-to-your-leadership-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">As I\u2019ve written previously, exaggeration and hyperbole are deadly forms of dishonesty<\/a>\u00a0for leaders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><strong>\u201cPeople can\u2019t stand arrogance in their leader.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here I wrote down that such arrogance usually reveals itself in the smallest, but deadliest, forms of subtle behavior and speech.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Humble-bragging\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019m kinda embarrassed by this double-digit growth under my leadership\u2026\u201d<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2014\/07\/14\/3-character-warning-lights-leaders-must-recognize\/\" target=\"_blank\">As I\u2019ve written before, your people can sniff out such arrogance in a nanosecond.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Spotlight stealing\n<ul>\n<li>An infuriating form of arrogance is found in the leader\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2015\/01\/08\/leadership-by-not-showing-up\/\" target=\"_blank\">who must make themselves the focal point of attention<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>When you hog all the positive attention for yourself you drive your people further into the shadows.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The White-Knight complex\n<ul>\n<li>Implicitly, or explicitly, some leaders make it sound like they had ridden in on a stallion and had single-handedly rescued the organization from certain doom.<\/li>\n<li>People withdraw their support from such leaders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Consider using this checklist to form your own character audit.<\/p>\n<p>Because if you can catch these indicators when they\u2019re relatively small, you can avoid a full-blown character crisis later on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do you prevent these character crises from seeping into your leadership?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updated from May 16, 2015 post I&#8217;m connecting with leaders in Australia this week, and today a question came up that goes to the heart of authentic leadership. A sharp leader asked, &#8220;What character traits are the biggest obstacles for leaders to overcome?&#8221; In response, I pointed back to an insight shared by Bill Hybels&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,738,478,7,581],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discipline2","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership","category-self-assessment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4853"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4856,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4853\/revisions\/4856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}