Cheaters Are Not Leaders

Posted: September 22, 2015 in No Leadership
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Volkswagon Cheaters Are Not Leaders“But everybody cheats!”

Really?

Everybody?

It seems to be a hardwired tendency in human nature that fuels the desire to cheat. Behind that desire is the promise of big rewards: winning a game, better grades, more money, big promotions at work, lots of stuff, and being the proverbial king of the hill: CEO, world leader, president or executive director of a non-profit.

And looking around, as those of us striving to be quintessential leaders do, it seems that cheating pays off in big ways. Cheaters seem to thrive because they cheat and because they are so good at it. 

The majority of people we see in leadership positions are cheaters. Of those, only a minority have been caught cheating. And even within that minority, many have cheated their ways out of being discovered as cheaters.

As a society, it seems we admire cheaters. We glamorize them and laud their schemes as brilliant and worthy of emulation.

Cheating is so accepted in our society that it shows up in our everyday language.

“I’m going to cheat on my diet just a little bit.”

“I admit that I cheated and substituted canned corn for fresh corn.”

Cheating is an integral part of our lives and vocabulary“I cheated and did my son’s math homework because I didn’t have time to explain it to him.”

“We cheated and ducked out of the reunion early to go to a movie.”

You get the picture. It is clear that the desire to cheat is so everpresent in our thinking that it makes its way very liberally in our speech (and clearly we don’t think before we speak because we give no consideration to what our speech says about our character).

“But it’s harmless. It’s just an expression. It doesn’t really mean that I would cheat on anything big or important. Lighten up!”

Harmless?

Notice the third sentence in that defense of using the word “cheat” in everyday conversation. That sentence – It doesn’t really mean that I would cheat on anything big or important. –  gives us insight into how deep the desire to cheat goes.

The speaker has just told us that they will – and do – cheat and they’ve given us the parameters within which they will or won’t cheat.

And since the speaker decides what is big or important (situational ethics), they’ve clearly given themselves the latitude to cheat at anything and everything.

How many times do we see disgruntled people in leadership positions of one organization leave and form a rival organization and then, by hook or crook (another cheating idiom), lure people from the original organization over to their new organization?

It literally happens all the time. Every day. Multiple times a day.

How many times do we – you and I – cheat every day?

With misinformation in the form of omission, slanting, twisting and spinning that puts things in a favorable light for us?

By cutting corners on something we are working on?

By doing our own personal things on someone else’s time and then taking the money for time when we were not actually working?

By embellishment or outright lying to make ourselves look better or to be seen in a more favorable light?

By manipulating other people emotionally to gain favor with them?

Cheating is rampant. As a way of thinking and being it is deeply ingrained in our society, in our species, and in each one of us personally.

But cheaters are not leaders. They are just cheaters. Morally and ethically bankrupt, they lack the ability, the talent, and the integrity to accomplish anything without cheating.

VW TDI Beetles, Jettas, Passats are among the 2009-2015 models with the cheating emission softwareThe emissions-cheating software (the software could detect an emissions test and could fake the right numbers to pass) that the people in leadership positions at Volkswagen approved and had installed on at least 11 million diesel cars (this is likely just the tip of the iceberg) is an example of cheating at the organizational level.

General Motors’ ignition switch debacle is another example of cheating at the organizational level.

It’s always tempting for members of the organizations to think “well, that was them, but it wasn’t/isn’t me” in the rare cases when organizational cheating comes to light (it’s important to understand that these are not isolated incidents for these organizations nor are they the worst examples of cheating they are guilty of).

Temptations are wrong for a reason. They always lead us down the path of darkness, which includes rationalization, blame, and excuses.

“I’m not guilty of cheating; I just worked there” is no different than the familiar military refrain of “I just did what I was told to do.”

To pull off organizational cheating, everyone associated with that organization in any way, shape, or form has to buy into the cheat.

Sometimes the buy in is based on disinformation or misinformation, especially the further you go down into the organization, but each person still has their individual responsibility for buying into the cheat.

It’s at this point that each of must confront ourselves. We all face this ethical dilemma more than we probably consciously realize, and, sadly, many of us shrug and say “That’s just the way things are,” and continue on surrounded by cheating and tacitly endorsing it by doing so.

In confronting ourselves, though, we must first look at our own lives to see where we think about – and sometimes act on – cheating.

We humans have a funny way of seeing our own character defects – like cheating – in a different (and innocuous) light than the character defects of others, whether they are individuals or organizations. In the process, ours become marginalized while everyone else’s becomes egregious.

That is why it so much easier to pass judgment on everyone but ourselves and why we can condemn everyone else and hold ourselves up as paragons of virtue.

It’s a lie we’ve gotten good at telling ourselves. None of us is as virtuous as we believe we are. We all – yes, even those of us striving to be quintessential leaders – have hearts of darkness that fight to govern our thoughts, our words, and our actions continually.

The difference, however, with those of striving to be quintessential leaders is that we are aware of our tendency toward being anything but virtuous. We are aware of our hearts of darkness that can sometimes burn intensely in our inner worlds.

And those of us who long to be quintessential leaders are actively engaged in the war to not only deny our vices and our black hearts, but to change our vices to virtues and the darkness of our hearts to light.

It is the war of our lives and the battles never stop coming. Admittedly, we lose our fair share of those battles along the way, but by staying actively involved in the war for our character and our integrity, eventually we see the results in fewer and fewer losses as we gain control over the territory of our minds and our hearts.

Are you a cheater or are you a leader?

You can only be one or the other.

How are we doing?

A Relative Slap on the Wrist for the Unquintessential Leadership at General Motors

Posted: September 18, 2015 in Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership
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General Motors Gets a Slap on the Wrist for Defective Ignition Switch and 124 - So Far - DeathsUpdate 9/18/15:

The number of deaths linked to the defective ignition switch – a $5 part that could have been easily fixed – that General Motors knew about for years and yet sold millions of cars with them has risen to 124 (that number will most certainly go higher).

It was announced on September 16, 2015 that “In a settlement with prosecutors, no individual employees were charged, and the Justice Department agreed to defer prosecution of the company for three years. If G.M. adheres to the agreement, which includes independent monitoring of its safety practices, the company can have its record wiped clean.”

Update 12/14/14:

42 deaths from car accidents in General Motors models have now been linked to the faulty ignition switch problem. 

Update 11/11/14:

unquintessential leadership gm delphi ignition switch deathEmails uncovered by the Wall Street Journal show that General Motors ordered a half million redesigned ignition switches from Delphi two months before the auto manufacturer issued a recall on some – but not all – vehicles with the defective ignition switch installed.

As of October 30, 2014, the number of deaths acknowledged by GM to be directly linked to the faulty ignition switch has risen from 13 to 30.

However, General Motors continues to maintain that the people in leadership positions – the executive team – in the company had no idea about the ignition switch problem, the order to Delphi for replacement ignition switches that cost GM approximately $3 million, or the need for a general recall.

yellow-dividing-line

General Motors’ 2nd quarter profits, posted on July 24, 2014, dropped 85% from their 2nd quarter 2013 profits. Frankly, it’s incredulous to me, given the financial hit the U.S. automaker has taken in massive recalls due to years of knowingly using substandard and faulty equipment, which is directly tied to 13 known fatalities, that General Motors (GM) is making any profit at all. 

To those GM customers who’ve been impacted by the lack of quintessential leadership that has been in place at the auto manufacturer for decades – and, in my opinion, still could be with the current GM CEO Mary Barra, who began her career with GM since 1980 with a degree in electrical engineering, and in leadership positions within the company since earning her MBA in 1988 – that GM has any profits at all is likely a bitter pill to swallow.

faulty ignition switch unquintessential leader general motorsI will not recount the entire unquintessential leadership history of GM here. That would be a book to write and with writing a new book already currently in the works, I don’t have time to commit to another. However, I will highlight several areas where unquintessential leadership existed/exists and will include links that provide more detailed information about them.

The paramount unquintessential leadership trait of GM is they routinely put corporate profits above the safety of their customers. 

Starting in 2003, GM engineers redesigned and ordered modified ignition switches – with a torque setting that was below GM’s minimum requirements – from its supplier, Delphi. The cost of an ignition switch? 57 cents.

From 2004 to 2013, thirteen fatalities occurred involving GM cars that had the modified ignition switches installed. All but one of the accidents were single-vehicle crashes where the drivers lost control and crashed head-on into something, in most cases a tree. In none of the crashes did the airbags deploy.

Additionally, beginning around the same time period as the first accident, GM car owners began reporting that their midsize and compact-size vehicles were randomly and intermittently shutting off while they were driving them. 

In the 2004 crash involving a Saturn Ion that killed Gene Erickson, GM told federal investigators, who couldn’t understand why the car suddenly swerved into a tree and the airbags didn’t deploy, that the company didn’t have any answers as to why either.

However, just a month before GM talked with federal regulators about the accident, a GM engineer had concluded that the Ion had probably lost power, which would have prevented the airbags from deploying.

Investigations into fatal car accidents where mechanical failure is the most plausible explanation involve the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration contacting the automobile manufacturer to see if (a) they have any similar reports; (b) if their engineers have determined a cause, using the car’s “black box” data; and, (3) whether it is an isolated problem or one that could require a general recall.

GM showed its unquintessential leadership trait of self-centeredness when decided to lie and obfuscate in the Erickson case because of money. Fines for an inexpensive part not meeting the company’s minimum standard, a possible lawsuit by Mr. Erickson’s family, and a large recall would have cut into GM’s profits. The shareholders wouldn’t be happy. People might lose their jobs. 

Therefore, GM’s response to federal inquiries into the subsequent 12 fatalities involving GM cars where mechanical failure was suspected was the same: silence.

Two other unquintessential leadership traits at GM are deception and dishonesty.

faulty ignition switch unquintessential leader gm general motorsIn 2009, despite years of knowledge about the faulty ignition switch and substantial evidence of conscious coverups by GM employees at every level in the company, GM engineers finally began to internally and quietly increase the torque on the faulty ignition switches.  

(And, despite what GM executives have testified to under oath, these engineers had the consent and knowledge of every person in a leadership position in every department – including the legal department, whose head denied any knowledge of the problem until this year – at GM.

To suggest otherwise is dishonest, which is why it remains to be seen if Ms. Barra will become a quintessential leader or will continue in the unquintessential leadership tradition that has, so far, defined GM’s leadership.)

However, when GM’s engineers made the change to the ignition switch, instead of creating a new part number for the ignition switch with the higher torque, which is standard operating procedure when any change is associated with a part or item to distinguish it from similar parts and items, they used the same part number assigned to the faulty ignition switch. This was clearly an act of deception and dishonesty.

(A simple example of distinguishing similar items by part number is how the part numbers of different wattage light bulbs might read: 40-watt bulb (40WBLB); 60-watt bulb (60WBLB); 100-watt bulb (100WBLB); and, 50-100-150-watt bulb (50100150WBLB).) 

The 2.6 billion recall of GM cars now underway is directly related to this deception and dishonesty. Because the two ignition switches didn’t have unique part numbers, there is no way of telling whether GM car owners have the defective switch or the corrected switch. Therefore, GM is having to replace all ignition switches in all GM cars with that part number.

Ms. Barra has a lot left to prove that she is not the latest GM CEO to be an unquintessential leader. When a CEO, who has insurmountable evidence to the contrary, states about a month ago that “I don’t really think there was a cover-up”, followed  by a lot of justifications and excuses, it is clear that Ms. Barra has absorbed a lot of the GM unquintessential leadership in the 34 years she has been employed there and, even if it’s possible, it will take a lot of time and effort to change what to her is a normal definition of leadership.

As always, it’s easy to look at a big corporation like General Motors and objectively see the unquintessential leadership within that company and shake our heads and perhaps even pat ourselves on the backs because “we’re not like that!”

But are we? Maybe not in all areas. Maybe not on the same scale in terms of causing peoples deaths and tanking corporate profits.

But here’s what we need to remember. Even one instance of unquintessential leadership that we don’t learn from and change immediately or just one unquintessential leadership trait that we are unable or unwilling to change, no matter how few people it affects, no matter the scale of the effects, puts us in the same boat as the unquintessential leadership at GM.

There are no degrees of right or wrong, good or bad, quintessential leadership or unquintessential leadership. It either is or isn’t. We either are or aren’t. 

Therefore, my fellow quintessential leaders, we should take a close and thoughful look at why the people in leadership positions at GM are unquintessential leaders and examine ourselves in the light of the unquintessential leadership traits we’ve outlined today.

How are we doing?

What Quintessential Leadership Looks Like: Always Ensuring Accuracy and Veracity

Posted: September 16, 2015 in Practical Quintessential Leadership
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Quintessential leaders always ensure accuracy and truthAlexander Pope is often misquoted as having written “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

What Pope actually wrote in his famous “An Essay on Criticism,” was: “A little learning is a dangerous thing/Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:/There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,/And drinking largely sobers us again.“

It seems that Alexander Pope presaged what we now find in a world immersed in technology, where the educated and uneducated, the thinkers and the non-thinkers, the gullible and the prudent, the knowledgeable and the ignorant now equally have access to the same Big Data knowledgebase that lies just a few keystrokes away.

It is in the glut of this unfettered – and it seems, for most of humanity, unfiltered – access where quintessential leaders differ from everybody else.

Before we talk about what makes quintessential leaders rare and the unique in this area of modern life, we first have to understand the big picture of technology.

We also need to be aware of how, in many ways, if we are not constantly critically thinking, objectively analyzing, and consciously rejecting the insistent siren song that beguilingly calls us to rely on technology for everything neurological instead of building and growing our minds by actually using them, we become unquintessential leaders.

A brief overview of how technology will , if we allow it to rule us and we bring nothing to the table in terms of control, reason, logic, and thinking, make us unquintessential leaders is paramount to understanding the inherent dangers it presents to us as leaders.

Search engine results are based on data analysis, not quality, expertise, accuracy, or truthfulnessAll the search engines – Google, Yahoo!, and Bing are the big three (today at least) – are data-driven. From an internet perspective, websites – and their information – get “ranked” by keywords and hits (how many people visit, how often, etc.).

Therefore, page one of our search results is determined simply by data, not by quality of information nor by expertise. That is why most websites encourage you to share and share often their websites on social media. The more hits they get, the higher they go in the “organic” (non-paid) rankings.

The other way that websites get first-page ranking is that they pay a lot of money for keywords (there is usually someone working fulltime in the background at nothing but this who does the monitoring and upping the ante, pricewise, for specific keywords to stay at the top of page one).

This is known as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. It is a budget hog for the organizations using it, but it gets results, so most organizations are willing to spend thousands of dollars a month to be in everyone’s faces when they do a search on one of their keywords.

The other side of the search engine equation is us – you and me. Analyses are continually run on our data – what we search for, what we click on, where we go on a regular basis in cyberspace (you and I may delete the browser caches on our devices, but the search engines never delete them) – and programmed algorithms pick up our searching habits and preferences and sheer down the available choices to what most likely fits what our aggregate data profiles tell them we want to see.

In other words, the internet is no longer a vast landscape of available information that we could cull through and get a broad perspective on about a topic. It is a miniworld of information that mirrors our past and, therefore, preferred choices. Our worlds, then, get smaller and smaller and smaller.

Having that broad overview of technology – their part and our part in mind – we now have to look at the relationship between who we are as humans and how the internet caters to that.

We humans have a lot more in common than we would like to believe. In fact, much of the hate, the condemnation, and the vitriol in our world comes from our rejection of our commonalities and our all-consuming pride in how we think we are so special and and so much better than everyone else.

Here’s a reality check for each of us. We’re not special and we’re not better than anyone else.

We all have the same limitations in the parts of us that matter and that determine how we see others and ourselves and how we treat others as we make our way through our lives.

Three of the things that all of us humans have in common – and which limit us to one degree or another – are biases, bigotry, and ignorance. 

The internet can feed these three things to excess if we are not aware of them and we are not consciously working to replace them with impartiality, fairness, and the kind of deep learning that Pope was referring to in his essay.

For the uneducated, the deeply and willingly ignorant, and the non-thinkers, the internet is a treasure trove of disinformation. Any bias, any bigoted thinking, and any ignorance can be found on the internet and it can be used to perpetuate bias, bigotry, and ignorance.

And it is. This quintessential leader shakes my head probably more than I do just about anything else at this point in my life at most of the stuff I hear, the stuff I see, and the stuff I read (I don’t read a lot of it because it’s so asinine, especially when I see the source, that I’m simply not going to waste my precious brain cells and time on a bunch of garbage that I know is not accurate and not true).

So what do quintessential leaders – those few of us who it seems have not completely lost our minds nor our ability to critically think, to analyze, and to prove or disprove objectively all information – do to ensure that everything we think, we say, and we do is both accurate and true?

  • We are aware of our own biases, bigotry, and ignorance and work diligently and continually to rid ourselves of those
  • We always consider the source of the information (Is it credible? Is it biased? Is it bigoted? Is it ignorant? Does it have an agenda?)
  • We always use critical and objective thinking as well as thoughtful analysis with all information we see, read, and Quintessential leaders take the time and effort to always ensure truth and accuracy in everything they say, write, and dohear
  • We never take any information we see, we hear, and we read at face value, but instead prove or disprove it thoroughly
  • We always speak and write less than we listen and observe
  • Before we ever speak and write, we deeply and thoughtfully consider our ideas, our words, and our presentation through the filters of accuracy and truth

This last point bears a little further explanation. Much of what is said and written on the internet is simply to generate content (again, this a requirement of Big Data and organic search engine ranking) and has little to no substantive value. 

In other words, voluminous content is just another way to manipulate a website to page one. The quality and the expertise of the content is irrelevant and the abundance of junk content on the internet proves that point.

The problem is when we the people fall hook, line, and sinker for the junk content. Often this kind of content has either something salacious or outrageous as its main point. We humans tend to gravitate to both and we love to share it with the rest of humanity.

It seems that the more preposterous, the more erroneous, the more sensational, and the more inaccurate information is, the more it gets consumed by the human race.

Veracity and accuracy, on the other hand, which are proven, well thought out, and fully explained don’t really titillate our biases, our bigotry, and our ignorance, and besides that, in our “I-just-skim-stuff-because-I-am-way-too-busy-to-actually-read-and-understand-anything” world, it demands too much time, effort, and self-reflection (we can’t stand the horror of possibly being wrong or needing to change ourselves) to come face-to-face with truth and accuracy.

For those of us who are striving to become quintessential leaders, we must look into our own lives to see which side of this equation we fall on.

Do we always ensure accuracy and veracity in every part of our lives, including the words we speak, write, and share with others?

Do we let our biases, our bigotry, and our ignorance rule the words we speak, write, and share with others, and in the process we propagate disinformation, misinformation, and lies?

Or do we – and this is a real trust-buster – sometimes ensure veracity and accuracy in what we do, including the words we speak, write, and share with others, and other times give in to our biases, our bigotry, and our ignorance and that is reflected in every part of our lives, including the words we speak, write, and share with others?

How are we doing?

What Quintessential Leadership Looks Like: Admitting When We’re Wrong, Sincerely Apologizing, and Making Amends

Posted: September 10, 2015 in Practical Quintessential Leadership
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Admitting wrongs is quintessential leadershipNone of us is perfect.

We all screw up from time to time. And, sadly, because it’s part and parcel of being human, we screw up a lot more than most of us are willing or honest enough to admit to ourselves and to others.

However, the difference between quintessential leaders and unquintessential leaders is what we do after we’ve screwed up.

Since screwing up is inevitable at some point, we all have to decide if, when, and how we handle it.

And what we choose to do after our screw-ups will demonstrate whether we are quintessential leaders or not, because this is the true test of our character and this is the accurate measure of who we are and what we are in every aspect of our lives.

Consistently choosing a path of dealing with our screw-ups will establish a pattern of behavior and, with time, that pattern of behavior will become our habit.

So the choice we make to address our screw-ups is the key to whether we are becoming quintessential leaders or unquintessential leaders.

Let’s look at what the unquintessential leadership path of dealing with screw-ups looks like.

President Bill Clinton models unquintessential leadership when dealing with wrongs

Unfortunately, this unquintessential leadership consistency of choice that leads Hillary Clinton models unquintessential leadership when dealing with wrongsto a pattern of behavior that becomes a habit in dealing with screw-ups is no better exemplified than with the public lives of President Bill Clinton and his wife, 2016 presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

Since the Clintons began a life in public service, they individually and together have an established pattern – now a habit – of dealing with screw-ups:

  • Ignore it
  • Deflect attention elsewhere
  • Deny it
  • Dance around it with technicalities to suggest no screw-up
  • Point to all the other people doing it
  • Call it an unjustified attack by enemies
  • Joke about it
  • Sort of admit it finally, but with excuses and justifications
  • Sort of apologize, but clearly don’t mean it or believe it

I will not rehash the many past instances of this pattern/habit during the Clintons’ many years of public service. It’s not my intention to make them the subject of this post, but to point out that they represent unquintessential leadership in dealing with screw-ups.

However, I will show how this looks right now with how Hillary Clinton has handled the issue of using a private email server and private email account for State Department communication during her time as United States Secretary of State.

errors-wrongs-mistakes-quintessential-leadershipQuite simply, Hillary Clinton screwed up. Although the policy of using State Department servers and emails was not in effect when Clinton became Secretary of State (a point she keeps invoking and twisting to justify and excuse why she did what she did), it was within just a few short months into her tenure.

Despite the government policy – and one of the unquintessential leadership traits common to not just the Clintons, but almost everyone in public office around the world, is “the rules don’t apply to me” – going into effect, Secretary Clinton ignored it and continued to use her private email server and private email account throughout her term as Secretary of State.

When it was finally revealed publicly (don’t believe that everybody in the U.S. government didn’t know about it already and just turned a blind eye until the media got wind of it), Hillary Clinton executed the unquintessential leadership habit of dealing with screw-ups that she has perfected perhaps over a lifetime.

Hillary Clinton, this week, finally got the the last step of this unquintessential leadership habit of dealing with screw-ups.

However, Clinton’s last step looks, in the video of her sort-of apology, as if someone’s got a gun to her head and is forcing her to make a statement that Clinton doesn’t agree with and doesn’t believe.

The irony is that it seems the poll numbers – in favorability and with other present and potential Democrat candidates for president – have pushed Hillary Clinton to the last step of the unquintessential leadership habit that she and her husband have developed for dealing with screw-ups.

But if took this long and this much drama and avoidance to deal trust-trustworthiness-quintessential-leaderwith, in the big scheme of what presidents have to deal with both nationally and internationally, a less significant screw-up in personal conduct and following the rules, then the essential issues become Hillary Clinton’s character and trustworthiness in everything.

How, then, do quintessential leaders deal with screw-ups?

To be fair, there are times that we don’t know right away that we’ve screwed up.

But those cases are more rare than we can sometimes lead ourselves to believe because quintessential leaders have very sensitive consciences that knock on our brains pretty quickly when we’ve messed up and don’t stop knocking until we fix it.

As soon as quintessential leaders realize they’ve screwed up, they take immediate action to:

  • Admit it
  • Own it completely (no excuses or justifications)
  • Sincerely apologize for it
  • Make amends for it by taking action to fix it
  • Learn from it so they don’t repeat it

This is the tangible evidence of who is and who isn’t a quintessential leader. In the process of doing this as a consistent pattern of behavior, it becomes the quintessential leader’s habit for dealing with screw-ups.

In the process, trust and trustworthiness is established and things get resolved quickly and correctly, instead of snowballing into something way bigger than whatever the original screw-up was.

five-alarm-fire-from-embers-not-doused-quicklyAnd this affects the bottom line for quintessential leaders, their teams and their organizations because they don’t waste their time, their energy, and their resources constantly firefighting ignored easily-quenchable embers that blow up into 5-alarm fires that threatens to destroy everything. 

So what path do you and I choose to handle the screw-ups we inevitably make in our lives, personally and professionally?

Do our patterns of behavior look like that of an unquintessential leader?

Do our patterns of behavior look like that of a quintessential leader?

Or are our patterns of behavior a mixture of unquintessential leadership and quintessential leadership?

I daresay this is one area where we all need to change and improve to make our patterns of behavior – which builds the lifelong habit – reflect quintessential leadership.

Nothing less is acceptable.

How are we doing?

 

 

 

The Unquintessential Leadership Aspects of Emotional Marketing

Posted: August 31, 2015 in General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Practical Quintessential Leadership, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader
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The Unquintessential Leadership Aspects of Emotional MarketingWe live in an incredibly noisy world.

The world is so noisy, in fact, that most people have resorted to the most base tactics – and those involve emotional reactions and responses – to be seen and heard.

These tactics, which are more common than not and are all around us, even though we may not even be aware of them, include gimmicks, sensationalism, and manipulation.

But are gimmicks, sensationalism, and manipulation okay to use? Should quintessential leaders use them?

That’s the topic we’ll discuss in this post.

Lets look at some examples of what gimmicks, sensationalism, and manipulation look like first.

As you go through your day today, I challenge you to look at all that you read and see and be aware of whether they are gimmicks, sensationalism, and manipulation or not.

If you’re paying attention, I believe you will have an eye-opening day.

The front page of the August 27, 2015 New York Daily News, pictured below is an example of sensationalism.

Gimmicky, Sensational, Crass Communication is Unquintessential Leadership

The ad below for the ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) featuring Sarah McLachlan’s 1997 hit song “Angel” is an example of manipulation.

These quotes and titles from a random sampling of the internet in the last week are gimmicky, sensational, and manipulative.

“…with ABC company’s finest immune boosting products as well as various soothing and calming treasures to help beat the stress…”

“How to Wreck Your Future”

“This Kind of Olive Oil Can Kill Cancer Cells in One Hour”

“Lose 20 Pounds in 21 Days”

What do all of these have in common?

First, they appeal directly to emotions and are designed to provoke an intense emotional response. Disgust. Sadness. Elitism. Fear. Hope. Happiness.

The second thing that they have in common is that they are dishonest, deceptive, manipulative and unproven.

The third thing they have in common is that they play on the gullible susceptibility of humans by promising, in most cases, something they can’t deliver.

But this is the way the majority of society has adopted to entice people to open the doors of their message or product because “smart” marketing says if someone opens the door the odds of them coming in and staying are very high.

This is the bait and the hook. And once emotions are involved, it doesn’t matter whether it’s true, right, logical, factual, or proven. Because emotional decisions don’t depend on anything real (how things are), but instead on sensation (how things feel).

Back in the day, this would have been called yellow journalism. Now it’s called emotional marketing.

There are many things wrong with these techniques. Here are a few of them.

Emotional Drivers are the heart of Emotional MarketingFirst, when a person or an organization is appealing to emotion, they are appealing to the irrational side of humans. Decisions made strictly on an emotional basis, with no consideration of logic and facts, are always, at the least, regrettable decisions and, at the worst, bad decisions.

And these kinds of decisions can – and often do – have disastrous consequences in peoples’ lives.

Second, a person or organization using emotional marketing is being dishonest and deceptive. Not only are they promising the moon, which no human can deliver, but they are intentionally misleading and manipulating other people to buy whatever they’re promoting or selling.

If a person or an organization draws people in under false pretenses and in an untrustworthy manner, then the logic follows that whatever they are promoting or selling can’t be trusted in terms of efficacy, quality, or longevity.

Third, people or organizations using emotional marketing are revealing both a lack of care and concern for others and a lack of personal integrity and character.

Because emotions are subjective and easily manipulated by gimmicks and sensationalism, using this type of marketing to reel customers in is a reflection of both a win-at-all-costs and the-end-justifies-the-means mindset, which is at the core of unquintessential leadership.

Unfortunately, most people are unaware of the emotional marketing that is thrown at them continually. And because society, in general, has abandoned logic, reason, and critical thinking in all its decision-making, it’s a safe bet to say that most people don’t really care if they are being manipulated and deceived by emotional marketing.

But we all should be aware and we should care. Consider the following statements from a generic emotional marketing campaign:

generic emotional marketing gimmicks

Notice that the first statement can’t be substantiated and has no objective data (ingredients that are different or better than specific competitors or the results of customer taste tests), but it promises healthier and tastier than any other tea that exists in the world.

The second statement also can’t be substantiated and is again lacking objective data to quantify it (e.g., 100 people who drank XYZ brand of tea in Yuma, Arizona on a 118-degree day in August said it was refreshing).

The third statement appeals to how a person looks (less calories equals less weight) and how a person feels (better than ever before).

The question of “how do you know?” is never addressed because of our lack of awareness and lack of care about being manipulated into buying something because it appeals to us on an emotional level.

emotions versus rational and critical thinkingWhen we get accustomed to accepting things without proof, to using our emotions to guide our decisions and choices in life, to abandoning logic, critical thinking, and reason – which emotional marketing makes easier and, eventually, the default way we live life – we are at great risk for being more susceptible to deception, dishonesty, and manipulation every where in our lives.

Quintessential leaders don’t use emotional marketing. They don’t use gimmicks, sensationalism, and manipulation. They use facts, logic, and critical thinking. They prove what they say and do before they say and do it. And they expect everyone – their teams, their audiences, and their customers – to do the same. Nothing less than this method is acceptable.

The reality is that nothing less than this method should be acceptable for any of us, but even more so for those of us who are striving to be quintessential leaders.

The mirror test, as always, will tell us whether we have fallen into the trap of emotional marketing as quintessential leaders.

Do we consistently appeal to emotional responses by gimmicks, sensationalism, and manipulation to motivate our teams, to build our customer bases, and as a way of life?

Have we abandoned facts, logic, and critical thinking in our decision-making? Do we prove everything for ourselves or do we just accept whatever we see, we read, or we are told without any substantiation?

Have we moved more toward emotional marketing and away from factual, logical, and provable information in our lives, both as leaders and as consumers?

Do we even know the answers to any of these questions?

If we find that we don’t know the answers, then now is the time to examine our lives and figure out what we are doing and why.

If we find answers that show that we have embraced emotional marketing both as leaders and as consumers, then today is the day to begin to change that with a return to facts, logic, critical thinking, and truth, which will lead to us rebuilding our integrity and becoming trustworthy.

Does this matter to you?

If not, then you cannot claim to be a quintessential leader. In fact, you can’t claim to be any kind of leader. Instead, you are a duped follower of a dishonest, deceptive, manipulative, and untrustworthy system that has infiltrated every part of modern society.

If that’s okay with you and you can live with it and yourself, then this post won’t matter to you and you’ll dismiss it along with any other things in your life – including those occasional pangs of conscience that knock on your brain but you brush away and ignore – that demand a higher standard, a different standard, a standard that sets the right example for others.

But if it’s not okay with you, then join me in daring to be different and daring to do the right thing all the time and daring to become a quintessential leader in every aspect of our lives.

How are we doing?

“Quintessential Leadership Practically Applied” – Free Chapter Excerpt

Posted: August 24, 2015 in Quintessential Leader Books, Quintessential Leadership
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Quintessential leadership is not theory. It is practical application in every area of our lives, not just something we aim for at work. In other words, becoming a quintessential leader requires action. Conscious. Consistent. Continual.

One thing that makes The Quintessential Leader blog unique is the focus on what quintessential leadership looks like – and doesn’t look like.

And there is always a call to action to look at ourselves and evaluate whether we are becoming quintessential leaders or are following the general trend of unquintessential leadership that we see around us.

Reading dry suggestions or formulaic bulleted lists won’t change you or me and our paths of leadership development.

However, examining specific areas of what quintessential leadership does and doesn’t look like and then holding that mirror up to our own lives can be a strong motivator for us to change.

Why?

When we are provoked, we have strong reactions to that provocation. The reactions will either be defensive – “I don’t do that!” or “That doesn’t apply to me!” – or they will be agreeable – “I’ve seen that and I’m trying to change that” or “That’s what I want to be like (or not be like).”

I’ve had some pretty strong reactions to this blog at times, mostly in the defensive category. I’ve even had people take posts so personally that they had the hubris to believe I was talking about them specifically.

I’ve found, though, that when people get really defensive or they take posts personally that they prove themselves to be exactly what they’re upset about.

And that’s okay. Because that’s the moment when they have the opportunity to see it for themselves and change it.

And that’s always my hope with this blog. Always.

Because I am a practical person who has no patience with imaginative theory and speculation, I always want to see what things look like in practice – practical application. If I can see something in tangible terms – good or bad – then I can both evaluate myself and see where I need to make changes.

quintessential-leadership-practically-applied-front-cover-smallWith that in mind, I wrote Quintessential Leadership Practically Applied.

And I’m including free downloadable chapter from the book – “Avoiding the Snake Oil Trap” – for you as a preview of the book.

Read it. Feel free to share it (please link back to the book if you do share it). Feel free to use it.

And if you find it useful, consider buying Quintessential Leadership Practically Applied. The price is nominal, but the information is valuable.

I don’t charge a lot for my books because I want them to be affordable and accessible to everyone. I realize people spend considerably more each day on drinks, snacks, and lunch, so I price my books at considerably less than that daily cost to encourage people to spend a little money on something irreplaceable that they can use the rest of their lives in contrast to far more money on something temporary and replaceable.

Just food for thought. Pun intended.

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