In my work as an executive coach and leadership trainer, I have been somewhat surprised by the increasing prevalence of leaders who engage in trash-talking, or "smack-talking," about their opponents or competitors. While we're familiar with seeing that behavior in professional sports and politics, it is spreading. Did the trash-talkers' brains "made them do it?"
Saj-nicole Joni, writing in Forbes.com, describes how high-flying executives such as Mark Hurd of HP, Tony Hayward of BP and Coleen Goggins of Johnson and Johnson, "fell Icarus-like to Earth." She cites of the work of Dr. Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University biological anthropologist, who has examined neuroscience in relation to the risks of CEO's bad judgment.
Fisher identifies certain personality types being associated with certain brain chemistry--the "explorer-dopamine, the director-testosterone, the builder-serotonin and the negotiator-oxytocin. Fisher argues, for example, that female leaders such as Carly Fiorina, Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton exhibit the director-explorer temperament in which testosterone plays a significant part. Fisher goes on to argue that when powerful CEOs "win," testosterone is released and additional wins also triggers dopamine release, heightening risk-taking and novelty-seeking.
So, are egotistical, win-driven leaders a victim of their own brain chemistry? Is the smack-talking Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison calling the HP board "idiots" for firing Mark Hurd, and ridiculing SAP co-founder Hass Plattner's "wild Einstein hair" in an email to the Wall Street Journal or even dissing Bill Gates as not being so smart, as reported by Brad Stone and Aaron Ricadela, writing in Bloomsberg BusinessWeek?
These kinds of behaviors seem to be antithetical the modern descriptions of transformational leaders, who exhibit the characteristics described by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis in their work on social intelligence and the biology of leadership, that identifies the capacity for compassion, empathy and self-knowledge as being essential for good leadership. And those behaviors stimulate very different areas of the brain and its associated chemistry.
Whether it's political opponents railing against each other in the commonest terms, or professional athletes trash-talking on camera, attacking the character of opponents and competitors seems to be readily tolerated if not embraced by the general public, as long the initiators of such behaviors are seen to be "successful" in terms of wealth or celebrity status.
Is this the kind of leadership we need in our organizations and our society?
http://raywilliams.ca; @raybwilliams
