5 Leadership Lies

by. Matt Monge

Recently I was speaking with a Gen Y professional on the phone during a sort of coaching conversation when the following took place.

“I want to be a leader, but I keep tripping myself up,” he said, sounding frustrated. That’s not a verbatim quote, but it was something like that.

But you already are a leader, I thought to myself.

“There’s no way I’ll ever be a CEO,” he mumbled, still forlorn.

“Why are you worried about being a CEO?” I asked.

“Because that’s like the epitome of leadership,” he said. “And Sara [name substituted] said I could be one someday.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you did become one,” I said. “But I’m still not sure why you’re worried about that right now.”

“Well I can’t be a CEO and keep screwing things up.”

I snorted. You cannot be serious, I thought to myself.

“You don’t think executives screw things up?”

“Well no I just meant that –”

“Meant what?” I said, cutting him off. “You’ve convinced yourself of so many leadership lies that you almost don’t know which way is up.”

Managers, front line folks, leaders, aspiring leaders, execs — we all fall for leadership lies sometimes. They’re these myths that we believe for some strange reason, and not only do we believe them, but we remind ourselves of their veracity over and over and over again.

Here are a few I here with more frequency.

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