Posts Tagged ‘fear-mongering’

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?

January 2013 Unquintessential Leadership in the News

Posted: January 18, 2013 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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This month, in U.S. news, two prominent people in leadership positions in the sports world who have shown themselves to be thoroughly unquintessential leaders have emerged. One of the ties between these two people – Lance Armstrong (7-time Tour de France winner) and Manti Te’o (the highly-touted former Notre Dame linebacker and Heisman Trophy runner-up) – is that of broken trust as a result of blatant dishonesty, spin, angling, the blame game, and outright deception.

As quintessential leaders, it is absolutely imperative that we understand how trust is built and how we become and stay trustworthy, because as is the case with Lance Armstrong and Manti Te’o, once trust is destroyed and trustworthiness is gone, it is difficult, if not impossible, to ever get back.

My eBook, “Trust & Trustworthiness” provides a compellingly insightful and comprehensive compilation of the quintessential leadership components of building and keeping trust and becoming and being trustworthy and what they look like in practice.

Although I enjoy sports, professional cycling and college football are two sports I don’t have any interest in nor do I really understand exactly what the mass appeal of them is.

However, I would have had to have lived under a rock for the past twenty years or so not to have a fairly good knowledge about Lance Armstrong and his career. The interesting thing about Armstrong, though, is that years ago, when he really hit his stride and became a household name, I observed a certain disconnectedness and ruthless coldness about him that made me uncomfortable. His eyes, I think, betrayed him. When the then-rumors about his doping began to swirl, I believed they were more than just rumors and were probably credible.

Armstrong vehemently insisted for years that he had never used drugs to enhance his physical performance and continued that steadfast denial even in the face of the irrefutable proof of his usage of banned substances and his distribution of those substances to others in the cycling world in the 1000+-page report from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) released in June 2012.

One of the most disturbing things I observed about Lance Armstrong during this period of accusations and denials was his viciousness and his determination to destroy as many lives as possible along the way. His behavior seemed more like that of a sociopath than of a man defending himself against unfounded and baseless claims. He spent a lot of time and energy ridding himself of accusers and, in his mind, enemies, fingering them as being cheaters and liars and claiming to be a victim of vindictiveness spurred by jealousy over his accomplishments.

After seeing portions of Lance Armstrong’s interview with Oprah Winfrey and reading the full transcript, it turns out that Armstrong was the cheater and the liar all along. Watching his body language and his eyes and observing the calculated and emotionless responses to Winfrey’s questions, it’s clear that Armstrong has strong sociopathic tendencies and that is the epitome of unquintessential leadership.

The first thing that I noticed about Lance Armstrong in the actual interview clips was that he still doesn’t believe he did anything wrong – and he never will. There is no contrition. There is no regret. There is no remorse. There is no guilt.

There is nothing behind the very feeble gestures that he’d like us to believe are admissions of dishonesty, wrong-doing, and cheating. No one who knows this man should ever expect a genuine apology from him. Whenever someone starts this statement: “I guess I’ll have to apologize…,” that person is not convicted within him or herself of his or her guilt, culpability, or the need to right a wrong. 

In Lance Armstrong’s mind and heart, he’s innocent of any wrong-doing. One of his claims to defend his doping is that “everyone else was doing it.” That’s the oldest excuse in the world, but only unquintessential leaders use it. All the other wrongs in the world don’t make a quintessential leader’s wrong right. Wrong is wrong and right is right.

People in leadership positions set the example for those they are responsible for leading. So when Lance Armstrong dopes, lies, cheats, and blames and crushes other people, what example is he setting? It’s unquintessential leadership on steroids, pun intended.

The most telling quote for me of Lance Armstrong’s interview with Oprah Winfrey was this one about cheating: “At the time, no. I kept hearing I’m a drug cheat, I’m a cheat, I’m a cheater. I went in and just looked up the definition of cheat and the definition of cheat is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe that they don’t have. I didn’t view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field.”

This is the heart, core, soul of Lance Armstrong. He has no integrity and he epitomizes the very worst – the opposite of quintessential leadership – of unquintessential leadership.

Manti Te’o, the former Notre Dame linebacker and Heisman Trophy contender, has a shorter, but equally unquintessential leadership track as that of Lance Armstrong. Another appalling aspect to this story is the same kind of unquintessential leadership being shown by Notre Dame’s executive staff, most notably athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, who has countered Deadspin’s revelation of the fraud and dishonesty perpetrated by Te’o by continuing to assert that Te’o was the victim of a hoax.

Te’o’s story of the death of his grandmother and girlfriend within a 12-hour period of each other fueled sympathy and admiration both by the media and the public for the young football player in September of 2012.

However, as Deadspin revealed this week, the story was a lie. Te’o’s grandmother did die in September 2012, but there was no girlfriend and no subsequent death from leukemia. It turns out that this was a publicity move of dishonesty and fraud – probably to up the chances of Te’o winning the Heisman Trophy and being drafted higher in the NFL – that, no matter what the assertions of Te’o and Notre Dame officials are, Te’o was intimately involved in and continually purported to be true.

The fact that Te’o actively participated in the fraud is what highlights his own and Notre Dame’s lack of quintessential leadership. How Notre Dame’s athletic director can keep telling people that Te’o is an innocent victim of a hoax when Te’o’s own words convict him and show him to be thoroughly involved in the web of deceit is beyond comprehension. It seems that once people go down the road of dishonesty, eventually they begin to believe their own lies to the point that truth is never and can never be within their grasps again.

Te’o’s dishonesty, with Notre Dame’s apparent approval and backing, has destroyed any credibility – and that includes trust and trustworthiness – he had. Even if he is drafted by the NFL (personally, I think they’d be crazy to draft him), no one will ever trust him again. He has proven himself to be an unquintessential leader: unreliable, undependable, dishonest, untrustworthy, and selfish, self-centered, and self-absorbed.

Te’o, in the end, like Lance Armstrong, and like every other unquintessential leader, is all about himself. They don’t care about the team or the truth. They have no integrity. They lack any authenticity. They are pretenders, wannabe’s, and examples of the opposite of what we as quintessential leaders want to be, should be, and, indeed, must be.