Arrogance Spells Disaster
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Posted On :
Jul-09-2010
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Article Word Count :
393
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Between 1922 and 2007, more than 13,000 people have put themselves at risk to pursue their dream of standing on the summit of Mount Everest. 73% of them didn’t reach the summit. 208 of them died.
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Between 1922 and 2007, more than 13,000 people have put themselves at risk to pursue their dream of standing on the summit of Mount Everest. 73% of them didn’t reach the summit. 208 of them died.
With so much at stake, Everest may be the best laboratory to observe arrogance and how arrogance threatens organizations. Like the climbing teams on Everest, when a company near the top fails to summit, you will find leaders who think only they know what’s best for their teams and organizations.
In their book High Altitude Leadership, Chris Warner and Don Schmincke reveal their mountaineering experiences as metaphors for leaders. With experience drawn from Chris’ 150 brutal and most difficult mountaineering expeditions, they present a new approach to leadership.
Warner and Schmincke claim that arrogant leaders ignore warnings in boardrooms just as they do on mountain tops. They pursue their own selfish dreams, and do a lot of damage by putting others at risk, sometimes fatally. Arrogant leaders act as if the rules don’t apply to them.
For years, I believed that charisma and confidence were important leadership virtues for me to have. One day, a colleague told me that my “confidence” was perceived by many as arrogance. A serious blow to my ego, along with a gift of humility.
Leadership greatness can only emerge when fueled by humility.
Humility fuels high performance. It improves our judgment by tempering our ego. Although we can be good and effective leaders with big egos, making the leap from good to great requires something extra. We must learn to balance our big egos with humility.
Often we don’t appreciate the virtue of humility in our leaders. The most aggressive, charismatic, egocentric leaders I worked closely with in the past, have vanished from the business arena. Most of the humble, empathic and thoughtful leaders are still at the top of the game. They are CEOs and Chairpersons of highly successful organizations.
Humility is one of the most important leadership virtues. Arrogance is very dangerous. As a student on the climb to leadership greatness, whenever I forget to balance my ego with humility, I learn the hard way how disastrous arrogance is. It can and will kill you AND your team, before you reach the summit.
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Article Source :
http://www.articleseen.com/Article_Arrogance Spells Disaster_24930.aspx
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Author Resource :
Original article by Dave Osh who is a forward thinking leader who has steered his way to the corporate pinnacle. His Thought Leadership blog is a wealth of stories, ideas, experiences, values, traits and skills which every manager who seeks a breakthrough towards international enterprise leadership needs.
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Keywords :
Dave Osh, leadership, CEO, corporate, management, development, training, skills, business, qualities, organization, effective,
Category :
Self Improvement
:
Self Improvement
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