All of us are arrogant to some degree sometimes. I know I am. Some of us are better at fighting it than others. Some of us are better at hiding it. Some folks are lucky in that they just don’t struggle with it as much. But all of us have struggled with pride, ego, or arrogance at one point or another. And if you’re thinking to yourself that you never have, well, you just did.
I’m no Jeff Foxworthy, but you might be an arrogant leader if…
1. You’re always right.
2. They’re always wrong.
3. You just happen to be the smartest person in any room you’re in. (Weird coincidence, eh?)
4. You never ask your team about anything.
5. You never even think you need to ask your team about anything.
6. You can’t remember the last time you admitted a mistake.
7. You can’t remember the last time you think you made one.
8. You’ve convinced yourself you’re being “decisive,” when everyone else thinks you’re being “a jerk.”
9. You’ve convinced yourself you’re “holding people accountable,” when it’s pretty clear to everyone else that you’re just going off on them.
10. You think none of the above have ever applied to you.
Thanks for presenting these in a way that doesn’t directly point the finger at me…
11. You only use the words “team member” or “my team” because you have to. You prefer ‘direct reports’ or ‘my staff’ or ‘the girls’.
12. You sign annual performance reviews, not write them.
13. You expect to get ahead on the things you say and not on the things you do.
14. Bullies and retaliates against people who “tell on” him/her. Using phrases such as “they respect me” or “they will believe me before they believe you”
15. Believes anyone who he/she has managed and moved up into other positions did so because of him/her (rather than in spite of him/her).
AND, you don’t even notice that you are doing. Being so wrapped up in yourself that your not even aware of your actions…
Nice list Matt.
It;s finny you chose Donald Trump. I think it’s great to address the issues but i wonder if this post could have been written with a positive spin. A list of reasons why you are a good leader because these are not your issues. I may give that a go if you think it’s ok. Do let me know.
BTW, I got here by way of Jen Olney’s Be A Leader tribe. I see you are also part of the Lead Change Group.
How’s that resource working for you?
Hey thanks for stopping in, Ralph. And glad you got here by way of Jen. Like you, I’ve learned a lot from folks in that group.
To your comment about the positive spin, if you get a second to poke around the site, you’ll see that most of my stuff is in good fun, even if it’s pointed sometimes. I mean heck–the reason I can make that list so easily is because I’ve been guilty of every one of ’em at one point or another. (And I used “The Don” as the picture to lighten the mood even more!) 🙂
But even though most of my stuff is in good (sometimes sarcastic) fun, I try to be fairly open and vulnerable and tackle uncomfortable stuff too. Maybe it’s stuff I’m wrestling with or thinking through, or perhaps it’s a tough question I’ve had to answer for myself recently. And sometimes that’s not going to be all rainbows and unicorns. 🙂
Yeah, it would have been nice to have a positive spin even if at the end it simply said ‘so if this is you, knock it off!’ But it’s still pretty funny to read and recognize some of these traits in people I know or have worked with before. Gotta love the picture of the Donalds hair blowing in the wind.
Thanks for commenting, Christina. If you’re terribly bored, you can check out my response to Ralph (above); it deals with the positive spin thing. Cheers!
Whew! Good thing that Number 10 is the only one that applies to me.
I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with people like you described. Even worse is when they take credit for your work and divert you away from higher leadership so they never find out it’s really you.