Does your business have an ego problem?
Zena Everett ??
Professional Speaker | Award-Winning Author of Mind Flip, The Crazy Busy Cure and *NEW* Badly Behaved People | Leadership Coach
I’ve?observed?a Crazy Busy character popping up in organisations.?Sally Show-Off is motivated by promotion, praise, followers, likes, drama.?She’s all about ‘look at me’ never ‘look what we’ve done’.
?Sally oozes confidence and charisma. Grandstanders like her do brilliantly at interview so they race up the ladder.?Those ‘tell me about a time’ questions are a golden ticket to perform.?Everyone knows that the person who has the best interview skills doesn’t always have the best on the job skills, but Sally Show-Off?knows?how to manipulate the process.?Steady Eddie doesn’t.
?It’s not enough to be good at your job these days, you must be visibly good in order to progress.?Sally Show-Off isn’t that good at her job but she’s really good at creating the perception that she is.
?She allocates a lot of time to curating her LinkedIn profile and establishing guru-like status.?Likes are everything.?Most of her ‘network’ are people who need her: her suppliers?or her team are instructed to comment.?Endless sharing on socials counts a lot now.?Leaders are expected to spill the beans on their private lives in order to build an ‘authentic’ personal brand.
?Cultures of 24/7 connectedness reward ‘look at me’ grandiose behaviour.?Always-on, super visible, last-minute demands, endless emails, unnecessary complexity, relentless?meetings, changing goalposts, too many projects at once. Who cares what impact her working style has on the little people who actually do the work??She doesn’t.?She’s hard to call out on this because Sally Show-Off?turns nasty?when she feels vulnerable.?This side?is rarely shown to the people she needs to impress, but saved for those less powerful.?They?only matter to her when a 360 review is coming up and anyway people rarely stick their neck out by telling the truth.?
What are the consequences?
Damage to the wellbeing of the people surrounding her, who eventually move on.
?Close scrutiny of a business that seeks and rewards these characters will show that their flash in the pan performance isn’t sustainable.?Sally Show-Off leaves, moving on with panache because she is a star performer with everything the head-hunters lust after.??
?What about Steady Eddie??He’s picking up the pieces, looking after the customers, doing his job without drama or conflict.?If only he scored higher on Leadership, Assertiveness, Influencing, Entrepreneurship or Communication Skills.??
?How can I help?
?Support your Eddies with coaching or my?aspiring leadership programmes?that align with your?values.?Book a?Crazy Busy?or?Crazy Busy for Leaders?session to wipe out ‘look at me’ behaviours and make it easy to get priority work done, drama-free.?Here’s my full?2022 brochure. Sallys can be?coached.??
My career manual,?Mind Flip: Take the Fear out of Your Career?will help you to create and articulate honest success.??
领英推荐
MIND FLIPPING:?to flip your focus away from yourself and instead look outwards – on to the value you add and the problems you, uniquely, can solve for other people.?
Chapter 23 of?The Crazy Busy Cure?is about how toxic bosses bully with unnecessary busyness?and how HR must?stop this.?Chapter 18 describes Control Freak, Super Stars and Mother Hen Managers: all nightmares.
Lots to talk about here.??What problems will you solve this year? Does your organisation bend the rules to enable difficult people???
Please share?this article?amongst your networks?and socials.?That's genuinely helping others, not grandstanding!
?May 2022 bring you health?and happiness?
Zena?
?Zena Everett: Leadership Coach, Speaker, Author
M:?+44?7968 424650
?Reference:
"Don't You Know Who I Am?": How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility by?Ramani Durvasula Ph.D, 2019.
Ending trauma on a global scale one family at a time and it starts with healing ourselves! ??
2 年There are nuggets in this article, thanks for sharing I’d be honored to have you in my network Zena
Consultant at MCS / BBA / Ben Place Consulting Ltd / NED
2 年What would be left of LinkedIn without the show-offs....?
Consulting Practice Director, Oracle
2 年Ah yes those interview rockstars but office nightmares ?? difficult to spot at first, but when the rest of the company works to certain values and their values don't align, they will soon stick out for what they really are.
Group Director of Reporting
2 年This is certainly interesting and why i hate competency based interviews as everyone can "perfect" an answer. I think there is a certain confidence a senior person needs to have - this isnt showing off this is more experience manifestering itself and hopefully showcasing i take ownership of my responsibilities. Depending on the interviewer a BS person is easy to spot even if hired and the role of the responsible person is to act for the betterment of the business not someone who can charm them - if not then they are also the problem!!
Speaker, Educator and Board Advisor on AI, Ethics, Leadership and Culture
2 年Do LinkedIn members have an ego problem? Check out all the show-off posts! #Narcissism is also one of the "dark triad" traits and a stepping stone to social pathology... Thanks for sharing Zena Everett #humblebrag