Now there’s a novelty!

Common sense should be the watchword of every good leader. It certainly should have been one of the main characteristics that enabled achievement of his or her lofty position.

So why is it always so easy to elicit tales of inept leadership from every corporate person I ever speak to?

Here’s some examples from a conversation with just one weary 50-year old former executive…

• a charismatic boss, able to command great loyalty among his staff… yet turning ‘on a sixpence’ in his own loyalty to them and mocking them openly in front of others
• the middle manager who takes the additional hours of a hard working member of staff totally for granted and then takes them to task for going home on time for unavoidable domestic reasons
• a Head of Marketing (HoM) who gets his secretary to make a late night call to a member of his team to set an early next day appointment which the HoM is then two hours late for
• the Managing Director who measures meeting effectiveness in terms of time spent rather than goals achieved
• the MD who arrives at 10.00, leaves at 15.00 and enjoyed his two hour lunch.

These are all real examples of what I term ‘crass leadership’, i.e.: leadership that is demonstrably thoughtless, insensitive and lacking refinement.

I know that even as I write this, leaders all over the world are passing asinine comments, instigating inane initiatives and making blundering decisions.

The shame is that many of them have common sense. They have just got too wrapped up in corporate culture and over-elaborate training courses to trust in their innate judgment and instinct.

Pity.

Tags: appointment boss common sense corporate culture corporate person crass leadership going home home on time initiatives instinct judgment late night lofty position loyalty managing director night call refinement shame sixpence training courses watchword