The Six Deadly Sins of Leadership

[jducoeur]

My feelings about Jack Welch are mixed, but one can't deny that he's been a very influential business leader of recent decades. So this post from him -- on what *not* to do as a leader -- is an interesting view from someone who's spent a lot of time at the tippy-top, and it generally rings true to me.

What's particularly interesting, though, is that very little of it is business-specific. Indeed, if you just substitute "club" for "company", most of it applies just as much to leadership within, eg, the SCA. By and large, leadership is leadership -- the details of the challenges vary depending on the venue, but the mindset and approach of good leadership are mostly the same.

I often say that, for all we describe the SCA's awards as being for specific things like "arts" or "service" or "combat", what they all have in common is leadership. I use the term *very* broadly -- there are many, many valid ways to lead and inspire others -- but that's the quality I look for in all polling awards, and demand from potential Peers. So for anybody who would like to move up the SCA's ranks, I recommend this as a quick summary of at least *some* of the practices for good leaders to avoid. (And really, you could just invert the negatives in this article and get a pretty good list of some practices to follow...)

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Is there a non-LinkedIn link to it? their walled garden design is hard to tolerate (and breaks on mobile, apparently)

[jducoeur]

Ah -- don't know. For me, it shows up as a feed inside LinkedIn per se...

[talvinm.livejournal.com]

He left out the most important rule of leadership--though, arguably it is the most important rule of command. But I see the BOD break it occasionally.

"Never give an order you know will not be obeyed."