How Leadership Ego Can Make Your Company Irrelevant

It is essential, in life and business, to always strive to be better, to improve. Having a curious and exploratory attitude pushes innovation and understanding to never settle into a routine. Many successful brands have failed over time due to their leadership’s ego, making them believe the same way is the right way. Being stagnant is not an option in this fast pace landscape.

The digital landscape is an industry that has actively and quickly progressed over 20 years, causing many enterprises to succumb to failure due to the fast nature of the industry. The most famously known brands that could not keep up or adapt were mobile phone companies like Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola. 

What happened to them?

• Excessive growth rate
• Lack of Innovative and Transformational Leadership
• Loss of Agility

Leadership ego can be a huge factor in remaining stagnant; it blinds them from looking ahead and challenging their possibilities as a company. Like Blackberry, these companies were satisfied with their product, and ultimately when they adapted to the times, it was too late, and their technology became outdated. These portable phone brands once dominated the industry but have now come to be almost non-existent.

Combining these three elements represents the perfect storm that often drives people to believe they are invincible and that no one can surpass them. In other words, this can be summarized in two words: ego and arrogance.

In a hyper-connected world dominated by technology and digital transformation, leaders must realize that operating with the old school mindset is extremely dangerous. 

In a scenario where consumers change behavior very quickly, and new, unexpected competitors that we can’t see coming are ready to enter the market with revolutionary products and solutions; leaders must:

• Stimulate and praise collaboration at all levels 
• Encourage constant innovation (always keep the door open to new ideas coming from their customers, partners, employees)
• Learn quickly from failures and move on (don’t let failure paralyze the organization)

Having a mixture of old and new generations in the workplace is critical for learning and having an open-minded environment. Businesses that succeed, like Apple, understand their people are the essence of a company, and subsequently give a lot of perks to their employees. It is a leadership that is mindful of their community, letting go of ego and replacing it with mindfulness, that is the key to success and business longevity. 

Written by: Federico Foli

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