Apparently it is not enough that everyone from “leadership” gurus to university business programs continue to inflate managers with vast quantities of insubstantial nonsense about the false idols (these same managers to whom this drivel is being fed) of individual leadership. As we know, many – if not, ultimately, all – of these gas-powered stars inevitably collapse, bringing themselves – and, often, their organizations with them – to ruin.
Distressingly, there is now a book published by two prominent gurus from business universities in the US that brazenly caters to the seemingly insatiable capacity for self-deluding hubris among such managers – even the fallen. Evidently with no apparent sense of either irony or shame, it advises them how to reinflate their deflated personas and remount the firmament of business leaders.
Mind you, the ability to recover from failure is a signal mark of the entrepreneurial spirit, and the creation of a socioeconomic environment that facilitates – even celebrates – this ability is possibly the fundamental key to unleashing the risk-taking behaviors that underlie the competitive dynamism of the US economy. But, for all the hype to the contrary, managers and executives are not entrepreneurs – they are employees; the people who start the businesses they manage are the entrepreneurs.
We cannot continue to kid ourselves with such pompous and self-serving rhetoric describing managers – or, at least, senior executives – as is so commonly used in “leadership” programs. It is unfortunately used in this book, as well, which exhorts disgraced CEOs to “rebuild heroic stature,” and to reclaim their “heroic mission.” We seem unable to see that the failures of these “leaders” are the fruit of the “leadership” training they seek and which, seeking, they receive.
It can seem truly difficult to believe that grown-ups really fall for this kind of dross. Obviously, however, the continued appearance of these books – and the continued presence of the gurus and professors who write them at highly regarded consultancies and universities – indicate that far too many do.
Don’t be among them. Self-indulgent fantasies are for children dreaming about grown-up life. You are already grown up. Get to work. There’s plenty there to keep you happily and productively engaged – and enduringly grounded in reality, as well.
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