Posts Tagged ‘anger’

What Quintessential Leadership Looks Like: Handling the Heat of the Moment

Posted: July 7, 2015 in Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, Practical Quintessential Leadership
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Emotions run very high in the heat of the moment“I’m so…you make me…I just can’t be around you anymore! I’m leaving!”

“Fine! Go! Walk away!”

“Fine! I will!”

Two otherwise-mature adults, their bodies defensive and tight with rage, turn their backs on and stomp away from each other with whatever led to this emotional climax unresolved in the heat of the moment like two three-year-olds fighting over a toy.

Immature? Yes.

Can we all identify? Yes.

Have we all done it? Yes.

The purpose of this blog is to define what quintessential leadership is, what it is not, and to show what it looks like in practice.

Being quintessential leaders is the goal. Becoming quintessential leaders is a process. And the reality is that none of us are completely there yet.

But we all, if we’re reading this, want to become and are on the path to being quintessential leaders.

Sometimes it’s helpful to take a unquintessential leader moment – we all have them – and analyze it to see what happened and why it happened.

Then, as we think it through, we can identify what steps (i.e., what it looks like) we could have taken and, hopefully, in the future will take to be a quintessential leader in this area of our lives.

Handling the heat of the moment consistently as a quintessential leader is one of the most difficult areas we will routinely encounter in our lives.

We face it, sometimes on a daily basis, as parents, as children, as siblings, as spouses, as friends, and as team members.

Because intense emotions rise to the surface in these encounters, it is difficult, at times, to step back, so to speak, dial down the emotional aspect, and exercise the discipline and self-control not to end up saying things we don’t mean, hurting feelings, and stomping away in anger with nothing resolved.

And sometimes the words we say are so harsh, the feelings are so deeply hurt, and the abandonment so angry and final that incurable wounds are left and relationships are damaged beyond repair in this lifetime.

No one wants this.

So let’s examine what quintessential leadership looks like in the heat of the moment. In the process we will see the places in these encounters where things can quickly either go right or wrong, leading to a domino effect that either leads to strengthening the relationship between two people or, at worst, destroying it permanently.

What causes the heat of the moment?

It’s usually something as simple as a word or a gesture.

Whichever it is, it pushes our buttons on such a fundamental level that our first reaction is extreme and negative emotionally.

When this happens, our gut response is to immediately turn off, shut down, and shut off whatever provoked our emotional firestorm.

We do this with defensive and angry words – most often in the form of a vicious verbal attack designed to hit below the belt for maximum effect – and defensive gestures (finger pointing, aggressive leaning in, etc.).

If this doesn’t shut up the person who has pushed our buttons and they try to explain why they said or did what they said or did, then we get angrier and more determined to stop the source of our emotional turmoil.

We pull out all the big guns of accusation and intimidation, talking over the other person, refusing to listen to anything they say, getting louder, angrier, and more aggressive to stop them.

If that doesn’t work, then finally we spit out the words at the very beginning of this post that convey that our disgust, our hatred (in that moment), and our rejection of that person is so deep that it has rendered us unable to even to complete a thought or a sentence so we have no choice but to leave.

This is an unquintessential leader response.

And our actions and words create anger, hurt, and frustration in the person we’re trying to shut down, so they have an unquintessential leader response as well.

Unquintessential leadership in the heat of the moment can lead to irreparable relationship chasmsIn other words, everyone fails to be a quintessential leader. And if the chasm we’ve created is too wide and too deep to be filled or bridged, we’ve also destroyed a relationship.

What does quintessential leadership look like in the heat of the moment?

First, quintessential leaders put the brakes on after the first gust of their emotional upheaval appears. They know their triggers well, but they also recognize that words and gestures that may mean one thing to them may not mean the same thing to other people.

So, instead of jumping to the conclusion that they know what the other person means by a word or a gesture, quintessential leaders engage with the person to find out what is behind the word or the gesture.

In other words, quintessential leaders put their own ideas, reactions, and assumptions aside and they start a conversation with the other person.

But starting a conversation is not enough.

Quintessential leaders listen to the other person. By listening, I mean they let the other person explain fully what they meant by what they said or did (there might even be an apology if they realize it was wrong or inappropriate) without interruption.

Quintessential leaders hear the words, they process the words, and they don’t make mental assumptions and arguments while impatiently waiting for the other person to get through talking.

Quintessential leaders then affirm that they heard the other person by summarizing what that person said. There may be a place here – if it is appropriate (most of the time it is not) and if it can be done peaceably, kindly, and gently – for quintessential leaders to explain their initial response to the word or gesture the other person used.

It is at this point that potential conflict is defused and a meaningful dialogue that can benefit both people starts. This is part of how we get to know, to understand, and to learn about each other, which is the quintessential leader way.

But what if neither person was a quintessential leader in the heat of the moment and they both ended up stomping off in anger?

There is still an opportunity to be a quintessential leader.

One action does not define who we are. If it did, we’d all be toast.

It is the sum total of our actions that show whether, in the balance, we’re on the path to becoming quintessential leaders or not.

The next opportunity to be a quintessential leader for both people is to reach out and apologize and extend peace.

Quintessential leaders extend peace after conflict regardless of faultIt doesn’t matter whether we were the attacker or the recipient of the attack in the heat of the moment.

As quintessential leaders we bear the responsibility to, as much as lies within our ability, do the right thing.

It may be that there is no acceptance of or response to our overture to make peace. That doesn’t mean we don’t do it anyway. It is the right thing to do. Always.

If the other person doesn’t accept it or respond to it, then we know that we’ve done what quintessential leaders do and we can have a clear conscience going forward.

And we’ve had a teachable moment for how we need to respond to all our future in the heat of the moments. We can learn valuable lessons even in the worst circumstances and those lessons should change us for the better.

Now is the time we all look in our own mirrors of our own lives. No, as tempting as it is, we don’t look around at everybody else. Look at yourself, just as I look at myself.

Are you and I quintessential leaders all the time in the heat of the moment?

Are you and I quintessential leaders sometimes and unquintessential leaders other times in the heat of the moment?

Are you and I always unquintessential leaders in the heat of the moment?

The odds are favorable that most of us fall into the category of the second question I asked. And that means we need to do some homework.

We need to figure out when we are sometimes unquintessential leaders in the heat of the moment what causes it (triggers, buttons) and why (response) we are.

Then we need to work on addressing those whats and whys so that they don’t light the emotional fire in us that makes us unquintessential leaders.

We can’t hold other people responsible for them (“well, if XYZ hadn’t said or done that, I wouldn’t have reacted that way”). That’s an excuse and a justification that makes everybody but us responsible for the changes we need to make.

This is our work on ourselves in becoming quintessential leaders and no one can do that but us. And some of this work may be extremely painful and it may last the rest of our lives.

But if we’re committed to becoming quintessential leaders, then whatever it takes to reach that goal is worth it.

How are we doing?

 

 

 

 

 

The Quintessential Leadership Perspective on the Effects of Force

Posted: May 7, 2015 in Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership
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Changing Choice to ForceIn a previous post, I asked whether choice or force was the methodology of quintessential leadership. Now I want to discuss the effects of force when choice is the default. 

In other words, what are the effects when people are forced to do something that is, by default, a choice that they can opt to do or not to do? 

Does forcing people to do something that is presented as a choice for them bring them around to whatever the intended effects are that the people who are exerting force are trying to get or does it make those people even more resistant to opting ever for the choice?

I always go for practical, this-is-what-it-looks-like examples of the topic we’re discussing, so we’ll look at a couple of real-world scenarios.

Let’s say that your organization does a weekly blog on random topics that are interesting, perhaps, but not mission-critical (whether team members read it or not will not have any effect on productivity, project completion, or successful outcomes).

Let’s say, as well, that your organization has a weekly video presentation that, again, is not mission-critical. Instead it is, in essence, a promotional video for the organization that continually pats the organization on the back and talks about how great the organization is. The video is posted on the same website as the blog and team members can opt to watch it or not.

What I’ve presented in these two scenarios is choice. Just like the choice you are exercising right now by reading this post (anyone who doesn’t read it is also exercising choice). 

Now, let’s say that the organization’s web analysts have been told to monitor how many hits the blog and the video get each week and their report shows that almost nobody’s reading the blog or watching the video. Remember, this is a choice that team members have to read, to watch or to not read and not watch.

Commandeering Team Meets to Make Choice ForceThe people in leadership positions decide the response among team members is unacceptable, so they commandeer each department’s weekly status meetings and have the blog read to each team and the video played before the actual meeting about what everybody’s actually there for begins.

There are a myriad of reasons why each of us, as unique and highly-individualized creations from the very hand of God, choose to opt in or opt out of the millions of choices we are presented with daily. 

In the scenario with the blog, some people don’t like to read.

Others want to stay focused on the things that are linked to productivity, to project completion, and to successful outcomes without a lot of extraneous – and, in many cases, distracting or unhelpful – information in the mix.

And still others find themselves in frequent disagreement with some of the subjective and erroneous information (we’re all guilty of it at times, my friends, and to pretend or deny that we aren’t is the height of pride and arrogance) included in the blog, so they don’t read it because it would end up being detrimental to them in the big scheme of things.

In the scenario of the video, some people simply will not watch videos. I’m one of those (the same is true with listening to audio).

Because of my learning style, which requires me to see words on a page, I need to read to process, to comprehend, and to think about whatever I’m choosing to invest into and make the focus of my time and attention.

Others don’t watch the videos because they are simply self-promotion of the organization and they’re not interested in “cheerleading” videos.

And still others don’t watch simply because they’re not interested at all.

However, because the blog posts and the videos are now part of weekly status meetings, the choice for each team member and their reasons for opting out has been taken away.

So what are the effects now that choice for each team member has been replaced with force?

The first effect will be a combination of anger and resistance.

And this is what unquintessential leaders who use this tactic – and it happens a lot – don’t understand or comprehend. The reason – the motive – behind force is to compel people to buy in to whatever is being presented. The belief is that force will lead to choice because team members just “aren’t aware of what they’re missing” or “team members just don’t know what the value of the information in the blog posts or videos is.”

In other words, team members are perceived as ignorant children who don’t know what’s good for them, so by forcing them to read (or listen) and watch, they will see the light and become devoted readers and watchers.

Wrong. Force will only drive those team members who have opted out of choice further away from a buy in. 

These team members will be angry because they are viewed by people in leadership as being ignorant and childlike (in other words, they can’t make good and/or right decisions for themselves). These team members will also be angry because they will see the force for what it is: an attempt to manipulate unconditional loyalty and support for the organization.

The team members who chose to opt out and now are facing force will also be resistant because their choice was taken away. These team members may sit there, but they’re not listening and they’re not watching. Instead, they are committed to the authenticity in their reasons for why they opted out to begin with. In other words, these team members will “check out” for the duration.

Another effect of choice being replaced with force is an outgrowth of resistance: attrition.

The reality is that once an organization replaces choice with force, it has embarked on the slippery slope of attempts to control everything and everybody in the organization. Choice is no longer available. Everything becomes force.

Resistance to that force, which is actually oppression, eventually leads to attrition. When continual and increasing attrition rates affect an organization, the organization has dealt itself a fatal death blow. 

Anger and Resistance Against Force Instead of Choice Leads to AttritionIt may take months or years to shudder into its eventual demise, but the outcome is, nevertheless, certain. Potential team members always look at an organization’s viability before committing to become a member of the team.

Viability is evident in the relationship among what kind of leadership is in place, organizational policies, and the rate of attrition. The higher the attrition rate, the more evident that unquintessential leadership is at the helm and an organizational policy of force is in place. 

If the existing team members are bailing, then potential team members are going to look elsewhere as well. It’s just the inevitable and logical outcome of the effects of force replacing choice.

So, my fellow quintessential leaders, now is the time for us to look in the mirror. We can always point at other people in any scenario we use, but that does us no good. We must instead look at ourselves, because we’re committed to the highest standard, to a different standard, to doing the right thing all the time, no matter what we personally may have to sacrifice in the process or what it may personally cost us, with every team we lead in life. It’s a matter of our character and our integrity.

Are we guilty of replacing choice with force? Are we in organizations that dictate that we replace choice with force? Do we go along because we don’t want to rock the boat or do we have the courage to say “No, that’s wrong. If it’s a choice, then we’re not going to force it on anyone?” 

Are we willing to lose everything – our position within the organization, our income from the organization, and our teams in the organization – to be authentic, genuine, and to stand up for and do what’s true and right, or will we compromise, becoming unquintessential leaders, because it will negatively impact us personally if we don’t?

I can only answer these questions for myself. You can only answer them for yourselves.

How are we doing?

 

 

 

What Unquintessential Leadership Looks Like in Practice

Posted: June 9, 2014 in Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, Myths and Misconceptions About Management, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art
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Unquintessential leadership is everywhere. Very few people in leadership positions even know, much less understand what quintessential leadership is. 

When we trace back and see how and when these unquintessential leaders were placed in leadership positions, we often find that the people who selected them were also unquintessential leaders and taught and mirrored the unquintessential leadership traits these people now exhibit. We also find that in most cases politics, personality, and a very limited criteria for selection – often superficial or technical – was applied.

The results of unquintessential leadership are reflected in the teams they are supposed to be leading. These results are devastating: to the teams and to the organizations these teams exist in. And yet the unquintessential leaders are oblivious to their responsibility for the carnage they – to a person, among unquintessential leaders, if there is a problem, it’s always the fault of others (“they turned on me,” “they were unmanageable,” “they were not team players,” etc.) leave in their wakes.

Unquintessential leadership, like quintessential leadership, has cause-and-effect results.

exaggerated sense of self-importance narcissism leadershipOne thing that is common and an overarching characteristic of unquintessential leaders is their own exaggerated sense of self-importance. This manifests itself in both subtle ways and obvious ways, but it’s always at the core of what unquintessential leaders do. Or don’t do.

An exaggerated sense of one’s own important is one of the most dangerous character traits a human being can have. It produces pride, arrogance, disdain, control, and the denigration of everyone and everything around it. It produces disaster and is one of the biggest enemies to what successful team-building looks like (cohesion, productivity, satisfaction, progress, growth, and profitability).

Let’s look at some of the specific characteristics that unquintessential leaders exhibit because of their exaggerated senses of their own importance and what the effects of those are, not only on their teams, but on their organizations – and beyond (if an organization is malfunctioning from within, then it is completely impotent and ineffective outside itself).

Unquintessential leaders are micromanagers. Not even the smallest detail can be attended to or decision can be made without their approval. The irony is that unquintessential leaders excel at minutiae, but they are either incapable or unwilling – or both – of handling the big picture and making big and/or tough decisions.

The effect on their teams is that their teams disengage completely and quit, either symbolically or literally. Oh the people may show up, but they are not there. Why bother? Human beings were given reason, creativity, initiative, and a need to produce, to grow, to reach their greatest potentials. When all of that is stifled or eradicated by micromanagement – which is really a lack of trust – a shell exists, but everything else dies. 

Team members who don’t yet have other options to go to will stay, but they are not there. Team members who have other options leave as soon as they’re able to pursue the new options.

Organizations with high attrition rates always have serious micromanagement problems, which, in turn, means they have a lot of unquintessential leaders in place.

quintessential leaders have a compassUnquintessential leaders try to control, through intimidation, threats, manipulation, coercion, and, sometimes, brute force, their teams. They insert themselves into every aspect of their team members’ lives, both inside and outside the organizational context, and try to wield power over each and every outcome.

The primary effect of this on their teams is resistance. No human being has absolute control over another human being. When this kind of control is exerted among human beings, resistance is the natural result. Interestingly, the net effect of this is the same as that of micromanagement: the team quits, internally and/or externally.

What defies logic for me is that often unquintessential leaders recognize that their teams have quit. When they do, unquintessential leaders then micromanage and try to control even more. It’s absolutely absurd. But I’ve seen it happen over and over.

Unquintessential leaders are inconsistent and unreliable. There is absolutely nothing about them that their teams can count on except that they will be inconsistent and unreliable.

The next effect of this is that their teams have no trust in the unquintessential leaders and the unquintessential leaders have proven themselves untrustworthy.

What eventually happens is that their teams end up bypassing them completely and going to others outside the team construct who’ve proven themselves to be quintessential leaders. Unquintessential leaders get angry about this, but their exaggerated senses of self-importance blind them to the fact that their actions have necessitated that their teams go elsewhere for what they need and require.

Unquintessential leaders are never available for their teams when they need them. They’re either too busy, physically absent, or simply unwilling to put the needs of their teams above their own needs and desires. You can never find them when you really need them.

The effect on their teams is disillusionment, anger, and resentment. The disillusionment, anger, and resentment starts building underneath the surface of their teams, but as this particular characteristic is repeated, that anger and resentment is palpable and evident throughout the team. It becomes something you can discern on a very tangible level in words, in body language, in attitudes. It’s an incredibly destructive force.

These are some of the more obvious results of unquintessential leadership (Qualities of Quintessential Leaders offers a stark and refreshing contrast of some of the results of quintessential leadership).

quintessential leaders changeToday’s question for you and me is simple. Am I an unquintessential leader or am I a quintessential leader?

As always, this is a look-in-the-mirror question for you and for me that requires close examination, brutal honesty, and if you and I are not quintessential leaders, immediate steps to change.

I am brave enough to look in that mirror and do the work of looking and changing. Will you join me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are We Green Apple Leaders (Unquintessential Leaders) or Ripe Apple Leaders (Quintessential Leaders)?

Posted: August 15, 2013 in Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art
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green apple unquintessential leaderIn Dan Rockwell’s latest blog post, he describes the characteristics and the effects of “green apple” (unquintessential) leaders on organizations. He contrasts that with the attributes and effects of “ripe apple” (quintessential) leaders.

Please take a few minutes to read Rockwell’s post.

Then, as always, because this is what quintessential leaders do, let’s each assess ourselves to see whether we are green apples or ripe apples. As individuals. As team members. As leaders.

As Rockwell states, we all can exhibit green apple traits at times. That’s part of being human, unfortunately. But my request of each of us today is not to evaluate someone else – as Rockwell proposes at the end of his post – but to evaluate ourselves.

Then via comments here on the blog, share with us a green apple trait that you have successfully turned into a ripe apple trait and tell us how you accomplished that. There is much we have to share with each other in our collective journeys to become quintessential leaders.

I’ll put the first one out there. I’ve struggled with anger – sometimes rage – all my life and still do at times. I’ve always worked hard, thanks to a late-night heartfelt talk with my mom when I was around eight years old about it, to contain, control, and eliminate my anger in every part of my life. Sometimes I’m successful. Sometimes I’m not.

But in the course of doing some really stupid and potentially dangerous things during my life when anger and rage got the best of me, I realized along the way that not only was I hurting myself by getting so worked up, but I had the potential to hurt others because of my lack of self-control.

So, I learned and am still learning that anger is my dangerous emotion. I always need to be conscious of that and be aware when it makes its sudden and flashpoint appearance. I immediately extricate myself from the situation that causes it. I walk away. I breathe deeply. I walk and talk myself through it until I get calmed down. Most of the time, this takes less than half an hour today (it used to take a whole lot longer, so I know I’m making progress here overall).

But, within the last year, I got a needed reality check that this is something that still is a pretty deep-rooted green apple trait that I have not completely succeeded in turning into a ripe apple trait.

I had a deeply personal situation where it took months to get over my anger and rage about the events surrounding it. red-appleEvery time I thought I was over it, it came back in full force – and, at times, even more strongly than when the situation and events happened – and consumed me all over again.

But the upside of this is that I was aware of it and my wholehearted desire was to eventually overcome it. So instead of giving up, quitting, and accepting it, I really worked very very hard and diligently on changing it, and with time and diligence, I made progress in ripening this trait.

But I know it’s still there and I know it’s a green-red apple trait, so my work is not done.

What is the green apple trait you are actively working on to turn into a ripe apple trait?

How Anakin Skywalker Became Darth Vader – A Quintessential Leadership Analysis

Posted: December 17, 2012 in Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Myths and Misconceptions About Management, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art
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Anakin Skywalker Before He Became Darth VaderRecently, I sat down and watched, for the second time, back-to-back, the last two movies of the Star Wars prequel trilogy – Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I had not seen either movie in several years, but wanted to review them after a recent Star Wars marathon on Spike TV during the Thanksgiving weekend when I saw most of all the three Star Wars movies in the original trilogy.

As I watched these two movies, I was amazed to see a lot of quintessential leadership – the presence or lack of presence – issues emerge. I decided to do an analysis of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, because in looking at the transformation, we can learn some important lessons about quintessential leadership – what it is and what it isn’t and how the presence or absence of the components of trust and trustworthiness, which I’ve discussed in detail in this blog, determine whether even the most competent, gifted, and capable people are also quintessential leaders.

Luke SkywalkerOne of the first things I noticed this time is how much Anakin and Luke Skywalker were alike in temperament and thinking. Both men were extremely gifted, but both also overestimated their gifts and their abilities and it created a recklessness and pride in them that clouded their ability to think clearly, to be humble, and to exercise self-control.

Both Anakin and Luke Skywalker were inconsistent in performance. At times, they both did the right thing, and at other times, they both did the wrong thing. Emotionally, they were both out of control, and they both lived their lives based on their feelings, which is why they both had an inconsistent level of performance. In short, they were unreliable and unpredictable, which are traits of unquintessential leaders.

Additionally, both Anakin and Luke Skywalker shared the trait of impatience. This came in part from pride and their overestimation of themselves, but it also came from a lack of contentment with where they were and what they were doing and the ability to see each step as part of a big-picture process. They both wanted, for example, to be Jedi knights – and both pretended to be before they were – before they had met all the qualifications through training and experience to actually be a Jedi knight.

This is a common character flaw that we find in unquintessential leaders. They want to positions, the titles, but they are either unwilling or unable to patiently do the work and take the time to be qualified to have those positions and titles. When they find a way – as Anakin did – to take a shortcut to where they believe they should be and want to be, the results are always disastrous.

Luke, in spite of sharing many of the unquintessential character traits of his father, turned out to, when push came to shove, avoid the same path his father had chosen. But it occurred to me that even though he did the right thing in the end, he still had the character flaw that he shared with Anakin of questioning the fairness of things as it related to him and he never completely learned to control his emotions, so Luke, as a force for good, long-term, remains questionable in my mind. Doing one right thing one time doesn’t make a person’s character. Right character is developed through a lifetime of making the right choices every time, all the time.

Granted, none of us does this perfectly, but a quintessential leader has this at the front of his or her intent and purpose at all times. That’s the quality of integrity.

So let’s look briefly at the unquintessential leader traits that Anakin Skywalker had that led him to choose to become Darth Vader. Notice that I purposefully used the word choose, because that is a crucial element in this discussion: the totality of all the choices in life that each of us makes is an integral component of whether we are quintessential leaders or unquintessential leaders at our core. Granted, there are gifts, abilities, talents that contribute to this equation, but even there, we have the choice to develop them or ignore them, use them or not use them, and to decide how we’re going to use them, so choice is always involved at the fundamental level.

In Episode II: Attack of the Clones, we see Anakin Skywalker as a young adult and in an apprenticeship with Obi-Wan Kenobi to become a Jedi knight. One of the things that stands out about Anakin’s character, even here, is how forcefully he is led by his emotions. He’s a no-holds-barred kind of person when it comes to how he feels. His pursuit of love is untamed and relentless. His fears rule his days and nights. His anger is fierce and hot. His resentments about the things he believes aren’t fair seethe steadily just under the surface, occasionally spewing out in volcanic outbursts.

Yoda LeadershipInterestingly, both Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi – as they would years later with his son – are constantly warning Anakin about self-control in all areas of his life (choices), but especially with regard to his emotions. Anakin doesn’t realize that being led by his emotions is the destabilizing force in his life. 

Emotional thinking crowds out objective thinking and the ability to observe things are they are instead of things from – as Obi-Wan ironically tells Luke to explain not revealing Darth Vader as Luke’s father – from a “certain point of view.” Emotional thinking leads to inconsistency, which is an unquintessential leader trait.

The roots of Anakin’s discontent, which is fueled by his rampant and conflicting, at times, emotions are evident in this episode.

He doesn’t see, for example, Lord Palpatine clearly, and believes he is one of the good guys, while Lord Palpatine is slowly and deliberately using Anakin’s emotional thinking and lack of objectivity to surreptitously manipulate Anakin. 

Anakin believes that things the Jedi are or aren’t doing for him, with him, and to him are not fair and are holding him back. This belief is fully cemented in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and it becomes the underpinning of all the choices he makes from there on out. 

As a result of Anakin’s lack of self-control, not only with his emotions, but in the rest of his life, where we see the same vacillation between extremes that his emotions have start appearing, we see three other unquintessential traits appear: a lack of integrity, a lack of honesty, and a lack of authenticity.

Anakin becomes dishonest with everyone, including himself, in these two episodes. Anakin isn’t even truthful with his wife, even though his fear – uncontrolled emotion – of her dying in childbirth leads him to choose to become Darth Vadar, because Lord Palpatine offers Anakin the power to prevent her death. This dishonesty also points to Anakin’s self-absorption, self-centeredness, and selfishness.

No longer is he focused on the big picture of why he is there and what the mission of the Jedi is. It no longer is important to Anakin by the end, only what he wants and what he feels and what he needs. In a sense, even his wife and twin children go off Anakin’s radar because his choices will dramatically and negatively affect them.

Lord Palpatine aka The EmporerNear the end of Anakin’s road to choosing to become Darth Vadar, he straddles the line between being a Jedi apprentice and being Lord Palpatine’s apprentice. He is thoroughly inauthentic, double-minded, and we watch as he walks the tightrope of trying to be someone that he has already abandoned being in his mind and in his emotions. The Jedi sense that something’s wrong, as does Anakin’s wife, but Anakin has gotten so good at pretending to be something he’s not that no one realizes what is really wrong until it’s too late.

Anakin’s issue with integrity was always there, but he made choices in both episodes which eroded and destroyed his integrity completely. A simple – and yet not simple when we examine it – example is his marriage to Padmé Amidala. The Jedi code forbade close attachments because of the emotions those attachments engendered and which the Jedi realized could dilute a Jedi’s obligation to his primary duty and could make him a vulnerable target for the dark side of the force.

But Anakin made a choice to deliberately break the Jedi code and marry Padmé in secret, and then further chose to hide their marriage and lie about their marriage, and encouraged Padmé to do the same. I think this is the defining event that destroyed any integrity that Anakin had left.

So, by the end of the third episode, we have seen all the choices along the way that Anakin Skywalker made that led him to choose to become Darth Vader. He had tremendous gifts, great abilities, and a lot of potential. But he lacked the traits of a quintessential leader, so, in the end, all that Anakin possessed naturally didn’t matter. We see the the same lack of quintessential leadership traits in the machine-driven-Darth Vader in the first Star Wars trilogy: his outside has changed, he’s got more power, but the inside – what he lacked or destroyed by choice to begin with – remained remarkably the same.

The question I leave with you is what are all the choices that are we making today? Are they choices that will enhance our quintessential leadership potential and realization, or are they choices that are eroding our quintessential leadership potential and are cumulatively making us unquintessential leaders?

Every choice matters. Let’s make every choice count toward quintessential leadership.