Self-Centeredness: Anti-Leadership & Contagious

Selflessness as a practice and an attitude leads you to become a successful leader. When a leader loses this quality of him or has not developed the same, he, in the long run is seen through and known to be the one only looking after self and not others.

An individual who is highly skilled with great achievements and results is not a full-fledged leader if he does not develop others like him, or better than him. He will always remain on level three of leadership as narrated by Dr. John Maxwell.

Some of the characteristics of these individuals are:

• They fly solo or think of themselves first in any situation
• They do not care about others or how they feel
• They hate collective decision making
• Personal benefits come first for them
• They do not disclose information
• They may keep others away from knowledge
• They may not like others to do good in life
• The only way they feel good is by getting someone else down
• They demonstrate arrogance
• They do not let others talk or finish
• They are at all levels in the organization

There are multiple possible root causes of such behaviours and characteristics:

• They might come from a background of high self-centeredness where everyone around them has been selfish.
• They might have gone through a number of incidences in life where they have been attacked, wounded and they remain in a defending position always.
• They might be lazy or incompetent, and would demonstrate power and force only to get things done. They might be successful for some time with certain people but not all the time with everyone.
• They might have low self esteem and low self confidence developed over a period of time and now have given up on developing themselves and chosen to fake it to hide it.

What are the consequences they, their teams, or their organizations face?

• They never have a successful team to support them as they drive away good performers and rely on comparison to non performers to show their high competency all the time
• They do not add value to self, team, and organization. Such teams and organizations will always remained stagnant and/or de-grow.
• They leave a vacuum, in a negative way as they never share information, knowledge, expertise and business opportunities with the team.

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How can you handle them?

• First, find them. Recognize the above characteristics early on before they get amplified.
• Take action to disperse their power and authority in decision making as too much power may corrupt.
• Get them to work with the team and not be the boss of the team
• Keep a check on the motivation levels of the team
• Constantly coach them to become better individuals, collaborators and better leaders in life
• Give them safety and security instead of too much power
• Give them opportunities to become an individual contributor, they might do well there
• Besides external motivators, also satisfy their internal motivators in these three basic psychological needs:
  1. Competence: feeling valued as knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced
  2. Relatedness: collaborating with colleagues and co-workers
  3. Autonomy: exercising self-regulation within guidelines to achieve business goals

How can you help such individual do better day by day?

1) Help them move up the 5 Levels of Leadership.

The 5 Levels of Leadership provides a clear picture of leadership. It defines leading as a verb, not a noun. It breaks down leading into understandable steps. It provides a clear game plan for leadership development. And it aligns leadership practices, principles, and values. Here’s an overview of the 5 levels:

Level 1 – Position: It’s a great place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there

Level 2 – Permission: You can’t lead people until you like people

Level 3 – Production: Making things happen separates real leaders from Wannabes

Level 4 – People: Helping individual leaders grow extends your influence and impact

Level 5 – Pinnacle: The highest leadership accomplishment is developing other leaders to Level 4

2) Apply these 3 Laws of Leadership

Out of Dr John Maxwell’s 21 laws of leadership, these 3 laws will help those struggling with self-centeredness.

The Law of the Lid
"Leadership Ability determines a Person’s Level of Effectiveness"
Whatever you will accomplish is restricted by your ability to lead others.

The Law of Addition
"Leaders Add Value By Serving Others"
The bottom line of leadership isn’t how far we advance ourselves but how far we advance others.

The Law of Sacrifice
"Leaders Must Give up to Go Up"
The heart of good leadership is sacrifice. The greater the leader the greater the sacrifices made.

3) Use these 6 Basic Principles Daily

1. Focus on the situation, issues, or behavior, not on the person.
2. Maintain the self-confidence and self-esteem of others.
3. Maintain constructive relationships with your employees, peers, and managers.
4. Take initiative to make things better.
5. Lead by example.
6. Think beyond the moment.

Let your leaders take an assessment on the above leadership ways and laws and do a self evaluation. Self realization shall help them see leadership in a different perspective. Guide them in applying these laws and principles of leadership in their daily life and see them develop to higher levels of leadership.