Leadership Experts are Idiots––And I Can Prove It

I am unabashedly ripping-off this theme from my dear friend and mentor Larry Winget. His book, People are Idiots and I Can Prove It is a must-have for your library. I’m just narrowing the focus a bit.

So why do I say leadership experts are idiots?

Well––mostly because nearly everything they claim to “discover” are things we already know––or should!

The last thing in the world we need is another study to tell us that people work harder when leaders show they care. We don’t need another survey that tells us that people only perform at their highest levels when they respect and trust their leaders. No amount of research is going to add weight to the fact that emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills are essential ingredients in effective leadership…

And yet the research continues.

More than two thousand years ago Lao Tzu wrote:

“When the people are not in awe of your majesty,

then great majesty has been achieved.”

That sums up nearly all current research in one neat bundle! The rest is simply implementation and that’s where contemporary leadership development falls way short––more on that soon.

Now before I let myself get too wound up, I readily admit that I’m grateful for the research. It’s nice to be validated. But I still wonder why it takes so much effort to understand what’s around us every day and what’s in our own hearts and minds too.