Some time ago, I worked on a special assignment with a fire chief I had not previously met. We talked by phone before meeting for the first time and the conversation went well. My initial impression of him was that he was very bright, accomplished, and skilled in his profession.
When we met in person and worked together, these perceptions were reinforced. He was clearly an expert in his field, and I learned that this chief was not only a rising star in his own department, but had also been invited to speak to fire departments around the world in his specific area of expertise. Our brief collaboration went well and we went our separate ways feeling good about what we had accomplished together.
Less than a year later, this chief had been fired for unprofessional conduct on the job.
I was stunned.
How could this happen? I’m usually a good judge of character and part of the work I do requires me to see underlying issues that may not be openly apparent. What had I missed?
What I could not fully understand in this situation was context. In the venue we shared during our work together, this person could not have been more professional.
But apparently back on home turf, it was a different story.
No excuses
In response to allegations of inappropriate conduct, a familiar refrain emerged: Everyone was doing it. I thought I had permission. My supervisor knew and didn’t say anything. It was part of the culture of the organization.
I am not disputing any of these statements. But authentic leadership must transcend these situational excuses.
True leadership is about remembering who you are all the time. Not just when making a formal presentation or taking command of an emergency scene. But also when others have let their guards down and are joking around, pushing the boundaries of acceptable professional behavior.
In some ways, these situations are the true test of leadership.
Everyone wants to be liked. Being liked by your coworkers is a good thing — good personal relationships can help to facilitate professional ones.
But for some people in leadership positions, just creating friendly relations among workers is not enough. They still want to be “one of the guys.” They want people to love them, to think they’re cool, to think of them more as a friend than a supervisor.
Two bad outcomes
And this is where a lot of leaders get in trouble. There are two bad outcomes to this approach to leadership.
The first is the danger of promoting unprofessional behavior, either through example or by looking the other way when it is happening. An occasional and minor lapse of professional behavior may not be a big problem when it is an aberration, something that rarely happens. But when such behavior becomes more of an organizational rule (“everyone does it”), real problems will arise.
The second bad outcome when leaders rationalize about professionalism is that the person exhibiting the behavior does not think he or she is doing anything wrong. When held accountable for a bad outcome, these people may be indignant rather than contrite. Why are you busting my chops over this? Everyone does it! It’s part of the culture! And my supervisor probably knew about it anyway!
Everyone makes mistakes. We get caught up in the moment, we make decisions based on incomplete information or we do not have the experience to understand the real consequences of our actions.
Mistakes themselves are not the biggest problem. In a perfect world, we recognize them, learn from them, share those lessons with others and never have the same mistake happen again.
The biggest problem that arises from mistakes is when people don’t recognize them as such. Instead of acknowledging bad judgment and correcting for it, they may feel they have been victimized by the system, that they are being singled out as scapegoats, and that they really didn’t do anything wrong.
A certain amount of entitlement always goes along with power. The best leaders understand the danger of this sense of entitlement and hold themselves as well as others accountable. They apologize for their mistakes and learn from them. They take the personal risk to admit they were wrong and work on change at a personal as well as organizational level.
Chiefs have tremendous power to set an example of what should happen when mistakes are made. When they step up, take responsibility and work for positive change, that example speaks to everyone in the organization in a positive way.
But when they make excuses, blame others, and duck the responsibility that they have, the message from that also comes across loud and clear.
