5 Leadership Flaws Of The Villains In X-Files
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 26, 2016
I love the TV show X-Files, which means I'm one of the many people who was glued to the TV Sunday and Monday night for the short run of new shows after so many years. This is the only way I love conspiracy theories, through the eyes of Fox Mulder and his partner Dana Scully.
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As the show ended Monday night, I started processing what I've seen in the first two shows. Strangely enough, the second show brought me back to many of the episodes during its first incarnation because some of the same characters are there, and some of the characters alluded to were from the past as well.
Thinking more about it, I realized that, when all is said and done, the problems Mulder and Scully keep running into and getting out of lay at the feet of those who keep trying to thwart them yet keep failing for some reason. The reason; bad leadership principles and actions. Yeah, I know it's a TV show and that one can't always equate fantasy with reality. In this instance we can, as I'll bet that the 5 points I'm about to make are some that you've seen a bad leader implement, even if the world wasn't as much in danger as it is on the TV show. Let's take a look at these 5 things.
1. The leaders think they're smarter than everyone else.
There's no doubt that the villains in the show are intelligent people. What they always seem to do is underestimate just how smart Mulder and Scully are, as well as how dedicated they are to their job. Just because people may not know something doesn't mean they don't have the capacity to put truth together and figure things out on their own.
2. The leaders can't maintain secrets.
I tend to believe that transparency is good for the most part when business is concerned. However, when something needs to be kept quiet for at least a short while, the information should be limited to as few people as possible, and they should be told why.
On X-Files, no matter how much the leaders try to keep things quiet, there's way too many people that know way too much and the leaders can't control everyone. The assumption is that those who know will keep their mouths shut "just because"... that's never a smart move. Why?
3. The leaders assume everyone who knows what's going on agrees with them on everything.
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Because a lot of what the show talks about deals with technology, medical procedures and, okay, aliens, there are a lot of different types of specialists that need to be brought into the inner circle. The belief that being in "the know" is enough to keep these highly intelligent people quiet seems to always go awry.
For instance, not everyone is comfortable with killing for killing's sake when trying to keep certain people quiet. There are a lot of people who get killed indiscriminately, and a lot of people who get set up to take the blame for something that they had nothing to do with just to get them out of the way. Think about corporate America in today's world; how often do we hear what's going on inside because someone leaked a memo to the media? How often do those people do it because they're happy about what's going on? It's rare; that type of thing never works well.
4. The leaders flout the rules they helped to create.
The quickest way to turn people against you who might be on your side is to decide that the rules don't apply to you that you establish for everyone, which is supposed to include you. If you have a tardiness policy but you always come in 2 hours late, who's going to respect you? If you allow certain people to break the rules because you like them and penalize others, how long do you think things will run well before mutiny begins?
What has always happened on X-Files is that someone in the know gets irritated with how things are going and starts dropping hints to Mulder, sometimes classified files, hoping that as a rogue player he'll be able to get the truth out without dirtying their hands. Sometimes those people have been in the inner circle. There will always be someone who decides that they're reached their limit in what they'll participate in when things become extreme.
5. Some of the leaders are too close personally to think clearly about what needs to be done.
On the show, there's a character known as Cigarette Smoking Man. As bad of a guy as he is, every once in a while he's been known to go against the grain in doing his job because it's possible that he's Mulder's father, and he might have been responsible for Mulder's sister being taken away from her family at a young age. In the first X-Files movie, one of the inner circle was worried that his own grandchildren would be in danger of something the group was looking to do, and he decided that was too much for him to be a part of.
I think it's admirable to think about the needs of employees who report to you as a leader; as a matter of fact, it's imperative to do so. However, if you get too personal with some of the employees, to the extent that you can't do the job properly anymore, the department will suffer and long term success won't be coming except as a fluke. Oh yeah; when push comes to shove, family and love always wins.
What do you think; do you know people in leadership positions who are failing some of these?
Hi,Mitch
I am also a big fan of X-files. Unfortunate, I missed the last two new shows.
You really do have a good observation ability. You are right on the spot about the 5 mistakes that bad leader make.
Out of that five points, the one that irritates me most is “keeping secret”. In order to have follower’s trust, transparency is so important. However on the other side of the coin, if something needed to be keep secret (whether it is business level or personal level), but it is not done the right way. There will be no trust between the leader and his followers.
Enjoy reading for post, Mitch!
Have a nice week ahead!
-Stella Chiu
Good stuff Stella. There’s a fine line between the need for secrecy and keeping secrets just because. Many leaders are bad at both of these which is just amazing. I guess this proves that TV doesn’t always get it wrong. 🙂
Hey Mitch,
I’m into conspiracies, but ironically I never watched the X Files. That is very unlikely of me since use to watch Unsolved Mysteries religiously.
But yes, I’ve know of leaders who underestimated their employees. This was a big lesson I learned when i use to do phone support for AT&T. In training it was taught that if you get a sense the customer has some knowledge of computers and dialup networking, then give them the benefit of the doubt.
Unfortunately there are leaders that value their position more so than the knowledge of their employees, which can be self destructing to the team or business.
Also I’ve known of leaders that, although they made the rules, they didn’t follow all of them, but expect their employees to do so. This can create a hostile environment lol.. once the employees find out, then that can put a lot of stress on you. Especially if The Union gets involved.
Thanks for sharing Mitch! This is a great reminder of what not to do as a leader! Have a good one!
Sherm, I’m not even sure if I can talk to you! lol If you ever get a chance, please, PLEASE, go back and watch some of the early shows. I’d recommend watching the new shows, but without context they might not hold your interest as much as mine.
As for leaders, I see a lot of this type of thing. It’s pretty common, and luckily for most of us it doesn’t entail dealing with the sorts of situations these guys keep failing at. I actually had more things but I may save those for a future post.
Number 1 is my favorite. Leaders who think they’re smarter than everyone else… I tell everyone who will listen that leaders want to be surrounded by people who are smarter than they are and/or know different things than they do. It makes their collective even stronger!!! As a business owner, I truly enjoy learning from people who I know are smarter than me. You, for example, have taught me lots of things about blogging. I appreciate that and do not take it for granted.
Thanks Yasmin. Actually, I don’t want to be surrounded by people smarter than me… I want people surrounding me to be as smart as me. 🙂 Based on how I grew up it’s hard for me to think of someone as my “better” when it comes to intelligence (although I have relinquished some of that to Neil DeGrasse Tyson lol). Instead, I hope everyone is or acts like they’re as smart as I try to be so that we’re all around a group of equals. You’re right, when everyone in the room is smart things can be fantastic.