The Biggest Corporate Curse - Genuinely Fake Leaders and their Stooges

Several organizations, especially where the founders become the MDs or CEOs, but undeservedly so, are afflicted by the biggest corporate curse that is there.

The curse of genuinely fake leaders and their stooges.

There is leadership. This is rare.

Then there is genuine leadership. This is rarest of rare.

And then there is fake leadership. This is common.

Finally, there is genuinely fake leadership. This is commonly common.

Genuinely fake leaders promote the unhealthy breeding of yes sir men, the stooges and then cultivate them causing immense damage to the cultural fabric of the organization.

What are the tell-tale signs of genuinely fake leadership being practiced brazenly and in a bizarre manner by the top man?

Here are a few:

• Extols the value of inclusion but sets up a gang of yes sir men
• Talks about diversity but installs yes sir culture
• Humiliates those who refuse to become his yes sir men
• Thinks of himself as a visionary but has pin-hole vision
• Carries a fragile but jumbo-sized ego
• Acts like a king but, at the core, is a big clown
• Protects his and his yes sir men's turf

The stooges are a specimen of the most obnoxious type.

And this is what they do:

• Lift the top man up high on a pedestal made of thin air
• Keep pumping the fragile but jumbo-sized ego of the top man
• Treat the top man as a king knowing well that he is a clown
• Act as "smart alec" in meetings with the top man
• Show that they are more important in the system than others
• Humiliate those who are competent

If you happen to work in such an organization, then you are doomed.

You will see the top man and his stooges do non-sensical things quite often.

Like the following:

• The top man asks his pet stooges to stay back after a meeting to discuss something important - "stooge1, stooge 2, stooge 3, can you stay back?"
• The top man humiliates professionally competent people by asking them to report into one of his stooges - "can you keep my stooge in the loop"
• The top man frowns upon others bringing up genuine issues by asking his stooges, "you all should discuss and see what should be done"