Leaders who’ve gotten carried away with their power drive often sound narcissistic when they speak. Specifically, they use the words “I,” “me” and “my” a lot. They might say things like: “I believe in this strategy.” “This is my team.”
Power-hungry leaders believe that Bad news will damage their reputation; so it gets suppressed or denied. And their employees, having received this message loud-and-clear, stop bringing bad news to the power-hungry boss.
We’ve all had moments of irritation watching a colleague mangle a presentation. Or mismanage a meeting. We’ve all thought to ourselves ‘I would have done this so much better.’ As long as we’re capable of keeping those thoughts private, and we’re able to silently endure the meeting, we’re okay. It’s when we can’t control our emotions, when irritation turns to Anger, that we’ve got a problem.
A clear sign that you’ve gotten too power-hungry is when you Distrust your employees to complete their work properly, or you’re wary of how they’ll represent you in a meeting. This paranoia comes from focusing so intensely on gaining your own power that you see the world as zero-sum and become suspicious of those around you.
Power is not inherently bad and wanting power does not make you evil. It’s only when we get carried away. [Mark Murphy is a NY Times bestselling author.]
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