⚠️ Watch out! After months of hesitation, I finally decided to speak about… leadershit.
There. I said it.
For 25 years, I’ve seen the same thing over and over.
A handful of overhyped buzzwords.
“Empowerment,” “Work-life balance,” “Authenticity” 🤯
But let’s be honest: Most of these terms are just fancy wallpaper.
They look good, but they don’t stick.
In this article, I will give you my view on leadershit. No, it is not a spelling error.
A definition of leadershit
Each time I tried to define it, I hit a wall.
Simply saying that leadershit is the opposite of leadership is not a definition. I tried to categorize behaviors that affect people more than the mere absence of leadership values. When exposed to a toxic leader, people experience strong emotional imbalance, poor mental health, and low performance.
I have not come up with a definition of leadershit, but let me give you some of the symptoms I have seen over 25 years career.
Empowerment or power by design?
Don’t empower me.
Give me power by design. Give me the autonomy to move ahead without the approval of ten steering committees. Create an organisation where self-empowered teams thrive, where people discuss like equals and move fast.
In today`s world, autonomy allows us to move fast, design a solution, and test it quickly with a customer instead of months of lab work for a product that is meanwhile deprecated.
Empowerment is a word invented by an arrogant boss who is so noble to give me a glimpse of true autonomy. A master in leadershit.
Yoga at the desk and other corporate BS
🧘♂️ Don’t teach me how to meditate at the desk.
Take away nonsense tasks and set the right priorities. Stop old projects that drag for years and focus on what matters.
Endless internal meetings and reports do not sit well with yoga at the desk, mindfulness at work and other corporate BS. We do not need tennis tables to relax. We need a work environment where stress is only as much as needed to be productive.
Corporate perks are not a substitute for a healthy work environment. Period.
Authenticity or false positivism
Be real—stop insulting my intelligence with fake positivism. I know the company’s situation better than the CEO.
Have you ever been in a townhall meeting where the CEO praises the teams for an outstanding achievement while you know the company is on the rocks? Yeah, that one. How does it feel?
Why do so many CEOs think that we do not know the situation? For once, we work on a daily basis with the figures to see that we are not profitable. We discuss with customers and get their feed-back. Not necessarily great. We discuss with each other and connect the dots, it is that simple.
It is not rocket science to understand a company`s real situation unless you are completely disconnected from reality. It is so easy for a master in leadershit to assume that he is the only superior human who can see into the future.
The leadershit culture
Yeah, yeah, endless talks on great company culture!
We have values. We care for people who are our best asset, so much that we send a batch of them home every two months. But this is a responsible company, of course you will have compensation for therapy. Add an outplacement course where you will learn how to finally make your CV. At the age of 50.
We implement agility because it`s cool and because we promised some cost savings. Naturally, we will add a steering committee on top and ask the agile teams to present a five-year plan.
All TEAL or Holacracy concepts are nice – there are some books we highly encourage you to read. To read, not to apply. Do not use beyond-bedroom reading; we are not creating a revolution.
Share your leadershit story
I foresee this little article will have a lot of updates over time. Please contribute, I want to raise awareness of those practices and fight for a better workplace.
For a better world.
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