![]() Early on, even Bernie Madoff and Enron’s Jeff Skilling planned to live honest lives. My colleague, Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen, addressed this topic in his HBR article, How Will You Measure Your Life? Clay observed that few people, if any, intend at the outset of their career to behave dishonestly and hurt others. I was caught up with external measures of success instead of looking inward to measure my success as a human and a leader. I had begun to focus too much on impressing other people and positioning myself to become CEO. By external standards I was highly successful, but inside I was deeply unhappy. ![]() This happened to me in 1988, when I was an executive vice president at Honeywell, en route to the top. I often advise emerging leaders, “You know you’re in trouble when you start to judge your self-worth by your net worth.” Nevertheless, many leaders get caught up in this game without realizing it. ![]() Too many leaders placed self-interest ahead of their organizations’ interests, and ended up disappointing the customers, employees, and shareholders who had trusted them. The crisis exposed the fallacies of measuring success in monetary terms and left many leaders with a deep feeling of unease that they were being pulled away from what I call their True North.Īs markets rose and bonus pools grew, it was all too easy to celebrate the rising tide of wealth without examining the process that created it. Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, I have sensed from many leaders that they want to do a better job of leading in accordance with their personal values.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |