Shaunah Seiverd
9 October 2015
Professional Reading Assignment In the book The Five Temptations of a CEO: a Leadership Fable, author Patrick Lencioni tells a story about Andrew O’Brien- CEO of a major company, who meets an older, much wiser man, Charlie, on his supposed train ride home. This man, whether he is real in life or a figment of imagination, lectures Andrew about the complications of being the CEO of a big company and what causes most of them to fail in regards to the five temptations. Charlie starts off with the first temptation which is choosing your status over results. He says that this is the hardest temptation to break and in short rather than caring about how their company is doing and its accomplishments, some (if not most) chief executives are more worried about securing their position. Next he explains the second temptation, striving to be popular instead of being accountable. He insists that instead of CEOs trying to be liked by their employees, they need to tell them what is expected of them and give ultimatums if said expectations cannot be upheld. Andrew then asks about temptation number three, the temptation to certainty over clarity. CEOs at times may wait too long to make an important decision until they know for sure that it is the right one because they are more scared of being wrong; which ties in with them being unable to hold themselves accountable. In transition they come to the fourth temptation, the desire for harmony. Another man explains that harmony is like cancer for a company because it does not generate good decisions; productive ideological conflict does as co-workers challenge each other through debates. Lastly, as their journey ends they come to the fifth and final temptation, choosing to be invulnerable over trust. Charlie explains using an example of his father, who was also a CEO, that there needs to be trust between the chief executive and their employees for there to be growth. This part ends with how Andrew interprets what he learned in his board meeting the next day, and then it glances to three years later. Throughout the rest of the book Patrick gives a more detailed summary of the temptations from his point of view. He also explains that these temptations are not the only way a person can fail at being a CEO. The last part of the book includes a self-assessment for readers to reflect on themselves. From this book I learned that to be a good leader you need to care more about goals and accomplishments rather than the popularity of your position. A leader needs to someone people can look up to and be able to trust. Another thing is that it is okay to have moments of failure and good conflict because that creates more ways to improve and grow. Striving for immediate perfection will only lead to disaster. Being a leader is a big role to take on and should only be done so if you are willing to hold yourself and others accountable. The most important point to me was the first temptation about choosing status over results. I say this because when I am finally working for a big company I would not want someone in charge who will let the company slip through the cracks in order to keep their position. When that happens they could be quick to blame others and then people have to be laid off or their pay has to be cut, that being said, it could be me that happens to.
Overall this book was pretty well written. I think the story about the two men really helps readers get a grasp on the idea of the temptations and how they fit into being a good leader. Although I agree with the mean point of the temptations, I slightly disagree with Patrick’s perception of the third temptation, certainty over clarity. The idea I got from it was that he thinks CEOs should make decisions quickly between two ideas when that does not always turn out so well. He is correct that they should not take so long to make a decision but, I feel that they should take some time to think about how it will affect them in the long run. I also think that Patrick could have used real stories instead because these temptations do happen in real life quite often which would make the book more relatable. Other higher positions with leader roles should be included too because CEOs are not the only leaders who face those temptations. All in all I would recommend this book because readers can take a lot from it and it really puts things into perspective for both present and future leaders