Organzation Culture

Toxic Leadership – Does Your Leader Have A Dark Triad?

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‘Guys, I will always have your back’, she said when she became our leader … until she did not.

We all know the stories about how notorious dictators like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein, not only ruled their countries with an iron fist, but had an inner circle of followers that were on the one hand attracted to them and craving for their approval, and on the other hand continuously on their toes, out of fear of falling out of favor and being ‘purged’ as a result. A contemporary example of such a dictator is Kim Jong Un.

Nowadays, we would say these dictators had a ‘dark triad’. 

What Is The Dark Triad?

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‘Maximizing the Business Opportunity of Generational Diversity’ – An Interview with Rebecca Robins and Patrick Dunne (‘Five Generations at Work’)

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❗ ‘We live in the most Generationally Diverse Demographic’ (Rebecca Robins).

🚫 Unfortunately, generational differences are often seen as a source of problems – sometimes misunderstood, and exaggerated by social media.

⁉️ However, what would happen if we saw Generational Differences as Opportunities instead of Issues?

📖 This is precisely the topic of the book ‘Five Generations at Work: How We Win Together, For Good’ by Rebecca Robins CMgr CCMI and Patrick Dunne.

🎙️ In the 30th episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I interview Rebecca Robins CMgr CCMI and Patrick Dunne about ‘Maximising the business opportunity of generational diversity’

During our conversation, we discussed the following topics:

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‘The Change Philosopher’ – An interview with Daniël Wolfs

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🎙️ Even though we have a vast array of change management theories and methodologies at our disposal (John Kotter, Kurt Lewin, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, William Bridges, ADKAR, etc.), it still proves to be very hard for us as leaders and consultants to implement real, sustainable change (transformation).

🚫 The harsh reality is that most change projects fail (the famous 70% of McKinsey), or end with a superficial victory declaration, after which the organization often falls back to ‘the way we DID things here’.

⁉️ ‘Why is that?’ That very question drove Daniël Wolfs, experienced change consultant and co-founder of The Change Studio (Netherlands), to write his thought-provoking book ‘De Veranderfilosoof’ (The Change Philosopher) on how we can approach transformation in a deeper, more human, and more sustainable way.’

► In our conversation about this book, we discussed the following topics:

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Select the right members and agenda items for your Leadership Team

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Most leaders leave the composition and agendas of their leadership teams to chance. This is a waste of time, energy, and focus.

Almost all senior leaders choose the members of their leadership teams almost by default: all their direct reports, as well as a selection of participants from staffing and back-office roles ‘in the matrix’ (Finance, HR, IT, Regulatory, Affairs, Communications, Quality Assurance, etc.).

The advantages of composing leadership teams in this way are that:

✅ Representatives of all functions are aware of every topic that is discussed (information and awareness)

✅ Participants from staffing and back-office functions feel they (and their functions) are taken seriously as true ‘business partners’

✅ The leader avoids difficult discussions about the composition of their leadership team

Although this sounds great, this typically results in:

❌ Large teams

❌ Long meetings

❌ Meeting agendas that lack a clear focus

Let me explain.

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The Company Culture of On – An interview with Alessandra Del Pino

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There are some companies I deeply admire, and On, the Swiss sports and apparel brand is definitely one of them! Not only do they make amazing products and have an extremely powerful brand, they also have a unique company culture.

For this reason, I was thrilled to sit down with Alessandra Del Pino, Head of Engagement & Talent Growth at On, to discuss the company culture of On, or, as Alessandra describes it, their ‘secret sauce’.

During our conversation, we covered the following topics:

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The Corporate Recruitment process is ready for Disruption

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I coach several people who are looking for another role, and it seems that the user satisfaction with the average recruitment process is even worse than in 2018, when I wrote a blog post with the title: ‘Recruiters should stop spraying and praying’.

In this post I wrote ‘We should therefore not be surprised if, in the near future, recruitment will become an AI-fuelled war between recruiting bots used by corporate recruiters, and application bots used by candidates.’

Today it looks like my predictions have become reality.

A ’sub-optimal’ candidate experience

What are the frustrations on the supply side of the market i.e. from the candidates? Here are the things I hear from my coachees:

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‘The Leader as Healer’ (Business Book of the year 2023) – An interview with Nicolas Janni

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‘A transformational read that every leader of today needs’.

These were the words Head Judge, Jacq Burns used when she announced that ‘Leader As Healer’, written by Nicholas Janni was selected as the overall winner for the 2023 Business Book Awards.

In his book, Nicolas Janni argues that we need a new leadership model to address the challenges our society faces.

Our current leadership model is one where we see great leaders as warriors ‘on the battlefield of relentless competition’, who drive action, pursue instrumental (shareholder value related) goals, and maintain transactional relationships.

Instead, Nicholas Janni pleads for leaders who are empathetic, intuitive, present, skilled in mindfulness and deep listening, and who can inspire colleagues to engage and collaborate.

In this episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I discuss with Nicholas:

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Leadership lessons from a CEO – An interview with Jeroen van der Veer (Shell)

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Twenty years ago, in 2004, Shell was hit by the reserves scandal. In the midst of this crisis, the board asked Jeroen van der Veer to become CEO and navigate the company out of this crisis. Recently Jeroen wrote a book titled ‘Van A near B – Lessen in leiderschap’ (‘From A to B – Lessons in Leadership’), in which he reflects on these, and other experiences during his long career (which also included for instance being the chairman of the supervisory board of ING during the financial crisis).

In this episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I discuss with Jeroen:

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A successful corporate culture change requires leaders to be the change they want to see

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Culture change is firmly back on the map! More and more companies are starting to reflect (again) what their culture is and what it should be.

More often than not, such a culture review is initiated by the CEO. The reason is that CEOs have a unique position in organizations: they often see both the current performance of the organization, as well as its unrealized potential. In case CEOs do not see this unrealized potential themselves, their Supervisory Boards, analysts and (activist) shareholders will point it out to them quickly enough.

Unrealized potential

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