Insecure Leaders

Leadership, in my view, is all about creating a vision of what's possible and then creating conditions for your people to achieve it. There are tomes written on the art, craft and science of Leadership and I don't pretend to better this body of knowledge. What I do want to talk about is the pernicious effects of an Insecure Leader on the organization.


I believe that an Insecure Leader not only limits the distance a company can cover, he also vitiates the journey. And on this tedious, long and slow trek, he stunts his people's growth. Taken together it's a grim scenario.


An Insecure Leader believes that he knows best. Convinced in his omnipotence, he retains all decision making with him. He believes that there is 'one best way' to drive business and he knows it. And he limits his organization's potential by this outlook and his capacity. If everything has to be routed through one person, there are bound to be bottlenecks. If the process to achieve outcomes is mandated, people's inherent diversity is insulted. And although ideas often emanate from an individual flash of brilliance, they grow & develop through open discussion. An Insecure Leader prevents this democratic mutation from genesis to maturity.

People working under an Insecure Leader do not develop, unless you count learning what not to do, as important learning (which it is, but then learning by inversion is hardly fun). He doesn't invest in developing people because he fears that he'll lose his edge if he teaches them his insights. What's more he wants people to just execute his ideas, and hires people who are 'coordinators' and 'executives' and keeps them that way. There is no need to invest in developing people, since they are inherently dispensable.

It's in the culture and environment that an Insecure Leader has the worst effect. He promotes confusion and mistrust by keeping the complete picture in his mind and revealing bits and pieces to his people. He believes that fundamentally, people are out there to deceive & shirk and he has to control & police to get results. All authorization and approval rests with him. There are tonnes of unneccessary checks and counter-checks. And in the end, everyone is busy filling out forms, getting signatures leaving little time for growing the business.

Organizations that are stuck with Insecure Leaders do not go far. Because their potential is limited by his life span.