With the release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens on December 17, 2015, it is a good time to consider, from a quintessential leader perspective, how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.
It is also a good time to reflect on how many of the same traits that led Anakin Skywalker down the path of unquintessential leadership are shared, in some measure, by his son, Luke Skywalker, and how those may affect what happens as this Star Wars trilogy unfolds. (more…)
The example we set speaks louder than any words we could ever say.
And our examples reveal whether we are quintessential leaders or not. People watch us more than they listen to us. (more…)
Update 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:
Emails 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.
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.
I 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.
Two other unquintessential leadership traits at GM are deception and dishonesty.
In 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?
Update: 12/16/14:
42 deaths from car accidents in General Motors models have now been linked to the faulty ignition switch problem.
Update 11/11/14:
Emails 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.
General Motors’ 2nd quarter profits, posted yesterday (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.
I 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.
Two other unquintessential leadership traits at GM are deception and dishonesty.
In 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?
I plan to make this a weekly feature on this blog, beginning with today’s post. I’ve done this type of post a couple of times already this year, breaking a story or two down in detail.
However, beginning with this post I will summarize the stories – some you’ve heard and some you probably missed – and give a big-picture statement about the the failure of quintessential leadership in each of them, and then invite you, as quintessential leaders, to do your own more in-depth analysis about the quintessential leadership failure aspects of each of them.
I do this because the heart and core of who I am is a coach. My role as a coach is to highlight and guide, but I firmly believe that each of us must actually put some effort into the analysis, the learning, and the application process to fully benefit from it. We’re on this journey to become fully quintessential leaders together. Therefore, we must all be engaged and participating in the process. I invite you to join me in meeting that goal.
The first story of unquintessential leadership that caught my attention this week was the FBI sting that left 10 Atlanta police officers facing corruption charges, when it became clear that they were accepting large sums of money from street gangs to provide protection during drug deals. Law enforcement is entrusted with protecting those of us who obey the laws – local, state, national – and removing those who don’t – street gangs and drug dealers certainly are among those – and this is yet another example of that trust and trustworthiness being broken. That is unquintessential leadership.
For a detailed and in-depth discussion of the components and traits involved in building trust and being trustworthy, please purchase my eBook, Building Trust and Being Trustworthy. You can also purchase a paperback copy from Amazon or a Kindle version.
The second story also involves law enforcement – Chris Dorner, who was terminated by the Los Angeles Police Department in 2009, and took a resoundingly unquintessential leadership route to protest what he believed was an unfair and unmerited – which it could well have been – termination. It doesn’t take much, from a big-picture point of view, to see how this is unquintessential leadership. Any claims that Dorner had about bias, prejudice, and mistreatment during his tenure and in his termination from the LAPD (he laid this out in a very coherent, well-organized document that shows this was an intelligent, sane man talking) were erased by how he chose to force the issue: with threats, murders, and hostage-taking. Eventually it cost Chris Dorner his life – who didn’t know that would be how it ended? – but if there were any real problems that he wanted addressed and corrected, no one will listen or do anything about it because the last actions of his life seem to support his termination.
Beyond the obvious – I do hope the obvious is obvious – what can we learn from this about how we resolve issues and about how our methods need to be consistent with quintessential leadership? It’s important to remember that not every issue, dispute, or disagreement is win or lose, with no in between. Some are. But those involve moral foundations and principles and are non-negotiable under any circumstances.
But for the everyday issues, disputes, and disagreements we deal with, are we able to see that a draw is sometimes quintessential leadership in action? The “how” we do something matters as much as the “what” and “why.” Are you the kind of person who draws a line in the sand about absolutely everything? If so, you’re not a quintessential leader.
I urge you to take some time to think about this in your own lives. I have seen many people with legitimate whats and whys go down in flames because of how they tried to address and resolve them. On the other hand, I’ve seen just as many people who had absolutely no basis for their whats and whys – in in many cases, were completely on the wrong side of everything – prevail because of how they dealt with them. Both of these are the extremes, but it should be a lesson for us.
Another story of unquintessential leadership this week involves a company. Carnival Cruise Lines failed all leadership tests this week with their handling of the result of an engine room fire on Carnival Triumph earlier this week. The right – and quintessential leadership – action would have been to send some means of rescue (ferries, another ship with support to do the transfer, etc.) out immediately. Carnival Cruise Lines didn’t do that because of the cost involved. Their greed – as well as their belief that their industry is “bullet-proof” – underlines the lack of quintessential leadership at this company.
I read a statement from Carnival Cruise Line CEO Gerry Cahill this morning and if I were on the board of directors for this company, he would have been terminated right after this statement: “We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case.” Failure was simply a matter of not providing a great vacation experience? Mr. Cahill is an unquintessential leader in action.
Another continuing story of unquintessential leadership this week are the Armed Services Committee confirmation hearings on Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. The “politics-as-usual” circus surrounding this highlights how much of a lack of any quintessential leadership there is in American politics. But freshman senator Ted Cruz of Texas brought the unquintessential leadership spotlight on himself this week during the hearings. Read the story. This is not quintessential leadership. Period.
And the last story of unquintessential leadership that I’ll point out today is the story of Oscar Pistorius. You can read the story if you don’t know it already. Any time I hear of athletes involved in incidents like this, my first thought goes to overinflated egos – an unquintessential leadership trait. My second thought goes to the rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs among professional and Olympic athletes, which is illegal, unfair, and wrong – also unquintessential leadership traits – and the emotional and hormonal side-effects of those drugs, which can contribute to actions like these.
Ultimately, though, the full responsibility for this falls solely and completely on Oscar Pistorius. If he took performance-enhancing drugs, he knew the risks, and he made the choice. All the tears, shaking, and “strongest denials possible” won’t change the fact the he is responsible for every choice he made – including this one.
After reading extensive excerpts from the Senate Armed Services Committee’s confirmation hearing on January 31, 2013 considering retired Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel’s suitability as the next Secretary of Defense, I could not help but think of William Shakespeare, of Julius Caesar, of Brutus, of Marc Antony.
“So are they all, all honourable men” was the line from Marc Antony’s eulogy, which I memorized for oral recitation in 10th grade English class, that kept coming back to me. Because Marc Antony’s eulogy is facetious in its praise of the very men – and especially Brutus – he knows betrayed Julius Caesar and figuratively stabbed him in the back and literally stabbed him in the front.
I also thought of Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno and the nethermost layer of his hell, which was reserved for traitors. He assigns Brutus and Judas Iscariot to this layer, using this literary vehicle to show betrayal as the ultimate breach of trust.
(It may interest you to know, by the way, that The Inferno, along with the rest of The Divine Comedy, is actually a political, not religious, book. This fictional work was Dante’s revenge against his political and personal enemies, but by using the cover of a religious treatise, he could condemn his enemies without fear of retaliation. However, the fictional, unscriptural concepts that Dante introduces in this work were later incorporated into the dogma of the church and became much of what both Protestant and Catholic adherents believe about the afterlife today – all of which is based on a work of complete fiction.)
The reality is that few of the people involved in this proceeding are honorable men – and very few of them show any quintessential leadership traits. The overriding hypocrisy, the back-stabbing, and posturing by most of those on the Senate Armed Services Committee are all unquintessential leadership traits.
A glaring example of this emerged over and over as different members of the Armed Services Committee referred to Chuck Hagel in their lead-in to their questions as “friend” or “old friend,” and then each of those same people proceeded to deal with Mr. Hagel in a manner that was, not only unfriendly, but downright hostile. With “friends” like these, who needs enemies?
Arizona Senator John McCain was particularly notable in his hostility and outright bullying (please purchase Unquintessential Leadership for a thorough discussion of bullying and two other unquintessential leadership traits that are often closely related to it) during the hearing. This has been the trend of John McCain’s behavior and character since his unsuccessful 2008 U.S. presidential race. It seems that a bitterness and anger has set in with him that has made him the attacker, the accuser, the blamer, and the one who demands the final word and not only always has to be right, but has to hear, even if it requires brute force, everyone else admit he’s right.
McCain’s questioning of Chuck Hagel was a continuation of that behavior and character. Whatever strengths,
knowledge, experience, and respect that John McCain once brought to the table with his inclusion in Senate matters has been eclipsed – and perhaps lost, though, hopefully not for the long haul – by this unquintessential leadership behavior that now characterizes his interaction with almost everyone.
Of all the Senate Armed Services Committee members who questioned Chuck Hagel, the only one who based his questioning on actual things related to national defense that Chuck Hagel has discussed in the past in a measured, persistent-but-not-bullying way was South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. The stark contrast between his interrogation of Mr. Hagel and John McCain’s was easily discernible in print, but even more discernible in the video excerpts.
John McCain’s body language, tone, and face are those of an unquintessential leader. Everything is combat and he must win at all time and his “enemy” must publicly surrender. Lindsey Graham’s body language, tone, and face showed none of those things. It was clear, though, that his line of questioning was directed toward a centerpiece of American defense policy, and its importance was why he stayed with it to try to elicit a policy response from Chuck Hagel.
On the other side of the table in the confirmation hearing, however, was another unquintessential leader. As a quintessential leader who interviews and hires people routinely, if Chuck Hagel had been a candidate I was interviewing for a job, after about five minutes, I would have ended the interview and would have asked my HR department to send out a form letter to Mr. Hagel saying “thanks, but no thanks.”
Mr. Hagel was completely unprepared for any of the questions he was asked. He lacked key information on policy matters directly related to the job of Secretary of Defense. He lacked, it seemed, informed and well-thought out policies on international matters and foreign relations. In short, he seemed not to even be aware of the rudimentary elements and matters related to the job he is being considered for. Most of his time was spent embroiled in defending or being decimated about his past, and the end result was the question, at least in my mind, of why anyone thought Mr. Hagel was even remotely qualified to be considered for the Secretary of Defense position.
Quintessential leaders are (a) qualified and (b) extremely prepared for their jobs. That is what we as quintessential leaders must be at all times. We will never know all the answers to all the questions, but as quintessential leaders, it’s our responsibility to be honest and say, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll find out and get back to you,” and then get back with an answer as soon as possible. You won’t lose respect if you don’t know all the answers, but you will lose respect if you don’t know any of the answers.
Quintessential leaders are also not hypocritical and disingenuous. You will not hear a quintessential leader call someone a friend and then treat him or her like an enemy. Quintessential leaders do not bully, do not insist on always being right nor do they insist that everyone publicly admit he or she is right, do not blame, do not accuse, do not attack, do not exhibit any kind of hostility. Disagreement and hostility are not twins. People can disagree without hating each other. And people who hate each other can agree.
As quintessential leaders, we should always look at the wealth of examples of people in leadership positions that surrounds us every day and identify what is quintessential leadership and unquintessential leadership. Then we need to take what we find and measure ourselves against it, because knowledge doesn’t do us any good unless we apply it. And the only person you or I can change is ourselves. If you’re not growing and changing, you’re at best stagnating, but more likely, you’re going backward.
And that’s one direction, as quintessential leaders, we need to be vigilant about ensuring that we’re not going consistently. As long as you and I breathe for a living, there will be times when we take a step or two back. That’s life. But the difference between quintessential leaders and unquintessential leaders is that quintessential leaders know this, are continually watching for it, recognize it as soon as it starts happen, and take immediate action to stop and reverse it.
Where are you today? Going backward? Stationary (stagnant)? Going forward?
What are you going to do about it?
The Quintessential Leader 