When Leaders Sabotage Their Business
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 2, 2012
While reading another article, which resulted in this post on one of my other blogs, I was reminded of a story from some years ago when I used to go for sales training at a local company.
One of the guys in the class was a salesman for his company, and he complained that he didn't fully know his company's product for him to be able to sell it better. When asked why, he said that the owner of the company restricted certain pieces of information from the sales staff because he felt it was proprietary and didn't want it getting out to potential competitors.
The guy also said that he felt the owner of the company was also one of the best sales people he'd ever met, but when he asked the guy for advice the guy said that's why he paid for his staff to go get sales training because he wanted to keep his own sales methods to himself.
It's a strange type of paranoia when one decides to pay for training others when that person could be training them himself. It's hard to imagine a company owner sabotaging his own business because of his worry that one day a sales person might leave and go to a similar business and thus impart knowledge onto someone else.
Can you imagine how it would work if every company and every other person in a leadership position did this sort of thing? How many front line people would there be who couldn't assist customers in the store because the people in charge withheld information? What would happen if they hired someone who actually knew more than they did, which sometimes happens in technology companies? Would they try to claim that knowledge as proprietary when it clearly wasn't?
Good leaders don't worry about how much someone else knows. They encourage that people who report to them learn as much as possible. They understand that one day someone just might leave, and that their success somewhere else is a positive reflection on them, whether they end up being a competitor or not.
As we begin a new year, I hope you as a leader is ready to take a major step forward and train others to be as knowledgeable as they can be, maybe even become leaders later on in their careers. Wouldn't that be a great tribute and legacy to you?
This is a good point, Mitch. I believe that team should be encouraged to learn more, especially sales and customer care team. In the past quite often I have fall into something similar, I’ve been given SEO projects to work on and when I request FTP details to do on-page optimization amendments, a major problem arise. Well, I guess many business owners do not understand that I don’t need anything on their server, nor that I will try to sabotage the project that I am working on.
Carl, I’m one of those folks where, if someone shows me they don’t fully trust me, I move on. This is definitely going to be my thing in 2012; have to think of myself as much as others. I think with some of the work we both do we deserve at least equal treatment; don’t you?
Mitch, you are absolutely right. For me this started in the middle of previous year. Quite often I reject offers and work when things are unclear and I don’t get enough assistance.
It’s called apathy. The ability to see something wrong and expect someone else to correct it. Since no one else fixes a problem or proves the other in office not to follow through on promises.
Pretty good take, Joyce. But when one is a leader, they can’t afford to expect someone else to correct things; that’s their job.
Great post Mitch, thank you.
What you describe, in varying degrees, is something that occurs quite often and in companies of all sizes. It drives me nuts, quite frankly.
We hear a lot of talk about the importance of collaboration and building community, but I see too many leaders stuck in the M.O. you describe in your post. There’s too much distrust. Too much fear. Too many leaders believe that it’s a ruthless, zero sum game where in order for someone to win, someone has to lose.
Talk about a myopic vision!
Cultures evolve around such leaders that suffer from a sort of arrested development. Can you imagine the sales impact that a more open and trusting style would have on the bottom line of the company of the leader you describe.
I believe they would be many times more successful in building an awesome sales staff, inspiring customer loyalty and having truly engaged employees.
Great stuff Danilo, and you’ve right, that kind of myopic vision can only destroy a business, not promote its growth. If one isn’t willing to help make their business better, no matter what level they’re at, then they shouldn’t even be in management, let alone own a business. And if it fails, there’s no one to blame but themselves.
Thanks Mitch. You also mention something that’s key, that everyone, at every level should be focused on make “their” business better. Everyone should have a sense of ownership but that can’t happen under a leader with a limited vision of what’s possible.
I’ve met the type myself, what they lack in empathy, compassion, motivation, support they tend to make up for by an enormous drive to be successful probably borne out of their own fear of others. Terribly narrow minded, he sounds like a right jerk to be honest.
LOL! He might have been a jerk; I never met him. But I met people who worked for him that complained about it. Now imagine that; the people who work for you, who want to do the best for you to represent your company, complaining about you and how selfish you are in not helping them represent you better. What kind of ignorance is that?
It is ignorance Mitch, however I bet he has other reasons for doing this other than the ones he asserts; namely to keep the staff who’re asking for this stuff feeling a bit inadequate and ‘in their place’.
A big claim I know because I’ve never met this guy but when I read back over the article it struck me that the things he said were really little ‘put downs’, even if he actually believes the answers he gives.
You’re probably right, Roz. It’s a sense of control and power in a way; terrible way to run a business though.
It is Mitch, but people run businesses and there’s all sorts of people out there. Running a business doesn’t confer any special sort of personality or moral character upon the leader and they can have power over a lot of people.
Ruling by fear isn’t all that uncommon, whole countries can be ruled by fear and have whole populations completely dominated but believing in their leader, look at North Korea.
Roz, those that grow up in an oppressive environment see that as the norm. Most people in, well, more civilized countries aren’t going to succumb to that sort of thing en masse, and that’s why leaders in those countries, business or not, need to learn better principles.