Leadership Failure in a Hostile Environment: The Importance of Leading Oneself

Abstract

Failing to effectively play their leadership role can have a devastating effect not only on leaders, but also on the group or team they are responsible to lead, as well as on the organization or organizations they belong to and/or serve. In the following example of a leadership failure, the author’s inability to come to the plate to play her required role as a leader had a negative impact on her professional standing, as well as on a number of individuals who she was called to lead. This example illustrates the necessity to master “leading oneself” prior to leading others. Cleaning out the cobwebs in one’s own psyche and mastering emotional intelligence are pre-conditions for effective leadership. This is especially true when leading in a foreign cultural context as this chapter shows. A leader always faces the possibility of having to deal with individuals who bring out those inner parts of oneself that have not yet been dealt with and healed. This chapter focuses on the importance of the key ingredient of leading oneself, namely emotional intelligence. Within emotional intelligence, the author examines her leadership failure in relation to self-awareness and self-regulation while leading a US government foreign assistance project. She highlights the negative impact on her leadership of fear that arose from unresolved past conflicts remaining in my shadow side. “Self-betrayal” emerged as a key factor also in her leadership failure.

Citation

Thompson, R.J. (2021), "Leadership Failure in a Hostile Environment: The Importance of Leading Oneself", Morris, L.R. and Edmonds, W.M. (Ed.) When Leadership Fails: Individual, Group and Organizational Lessons from the Worst Workplace Experiences, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 91-102. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-766-120211009