Throughout the many decades of leadership, many people have only looked at the successes of leaders to learn what it takes to be a good leader. But as potential leaders we must also look at the many failures of these leaders. In my readings I have found that there are three fatal areas in which leaders set up their own failures and ultimately their demises. Knowing Others, Contextual Intelligence, and The Self, are easily misunderstood and forgotten and create failure and compromise. Mr. Bennis refers to Knowing Others as the “Caesars Problem”. It comes from the Shakespeare play called Julius Caesar. It is described as leaders exhibiting arrogance after many years of leadership, which leads to a communication disconnect with subordinates and coworkers. A great example of this would be the case of Margaret Thatcher. Margaret was the leader of U.K for just over a decade. She had a multitude of successes and was widely loved by all her citizens. But in her last year she plagued by economic problems and political infighting which led to her demise. Many say it was her …show more content…
This includes evaluating factors accurately, developing an appropriate strategy for future actions and responding as appropriate. What makes this hard is that there are many variables that play a part in every situation. Today’s leaders need to explore and research many different areas in which they are unfamiliar. Failure to do so could lead to poor and inappropriate decision making. Mr. Bennis had advised, based on his own experiences, that leaders should move slowly to gain awareness of a situation. Many new leaders are under the impression that in their first 100 days of leadership, their tenure is what sets the groundwork for their future success. When in fact they should instead use their best judgment and take the time to fully assess a situation before making drastic