Whether it is the home, business, non-profit, church, athletic organization, community, or the nation in which you reside, we have a crisis of self-serving leadership. People are just more focused on themselves and their self-interests than the good of others. Pat Riley, in his famous book The Winner Within: A Life Plan For Team Players, gives a name to those who put personal agendas before organizational success – he calls it The Disease Of Me.
It is easy to spot those who are “in it for themselves.” They are loud, arrogant, greedy and selfish. The more insidious perpetrators of The Disease Of Me are those who are seemingly self-improving for the good of others when in fact, they only want something from themselves. Specifically, Riley points out members of the 1980-81 Los Angeles Lakers who came to training in great shape. However, their off-season commitment to training was not to improve the team’s chances of repeating as NBA champions, but rather to usurp the leadership mantle from Kareen Abdul-Jabbar. The Disease Of Me.
This is just one of several signs of a self-serving leader. How do you spot someone with The Disease Of Me? Riley offers these 7 Danger Signals:
- Inexperience in dealing with sudden success. When success’s spotlight shines on you for the first time, you bask in the glory rather than putting the attention on your teammates who helped make the success a reality.
- Chronic feelings of under-appreciation. You do not feel you are getting enough credit or attention for the team’s success.
- Paranoia over being cheated out of one’s rightful share. Success has financial rewards. Rather than celebrating team accomplishment, you focused on who is getting what share of the pie.
- Resentment against the competence of partners. Rather than celebrating the giftedness of your teammate(s), you grow resentful, jealous, and envious of their skills, talents, abilities, and notoriety.
- Personal effort mustered solely to outshine a teammate. The story involving Adbul-Jabbar mentioned above is reflective of this. Your self-improvement is for the purposes of beating your teammate(s) rather than your rival.
- A leadership vacuum resulting from the formation of cliques and rivalries. Organizations suffering from The Disease Of Me are fractured organizations. Rather than a leader or leadership team, the organization has splintered into a series of groups with personal agendas. In these environments, your organization has become a group of internally-competing autonomous zones.
- Feelings of frustration even when the team performs successfully. You are not happy for the team’s success unless you get your notoriety, compensation, credit, and additional future opportunities.
Do any of these 7 signals exist in your organization?
If so, Riley has a solution – sacrifice. He writes, “The most difficult thing for individuals to do when they’re part of the team is to sacrifice. It’s so easy to become selfish in a team environment… Willing sacrifice is the great paradox. You must give up something in the immediate present – comfort, ease, recognition, quick rewards – to attract something even better in the future; a full heart and sense that you did something which counted. Without sacrifice, you’ll never know your team’s potential, or your own.”
This amazing book written in 1994 has leadership principles which are so relevant for today. If you do not own a copy, click HERE or on the image above to purchase an inexpensive copy.
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