Self-Destructive Behaviors in an Age of Unseriousness

Whether out of hubris or ignorance, many leaders today fail to truly confront the pressure they feel when they’re compelled to do two opposing things at the same time (i.e., cross-pressures). Instead, they fall back on a range of unserious behaviors that are ineffective at best, or outright destructive to their organizations and careers at worst.

What do I mean by unserious behaviors? Things like replacing decorum with outrageousness, focusing on trivial goals, ignoring changes you don’t like, acting with disdain for customers, indulging in self-righteousness, and failing to show spine when necessary

What are some examples of replacing decorum with outrageousness? Tony Fernandes, the co-founder of AirAsia, released a photo of himself shirtless and receiving a massage during a work meeting. BP CEO Bernard Looney had to resign due to incomplete disclosures of past personal relationships with colleagues. And Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to an MMA-style cage fight. These episodes are just a few examples of a larger trend: the rise of unserious behavior among extremely intelligent, talented, and successful leaders. If Musk and Zuckerberg, two of the wealthiest and most powerful CEOs in the world, could get away with acting like angry teenagers, imagine the ripple effect of their influence on everyone else. As Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger observed: 

“Mr. Zuckerberg has spent hours testifying before Congress that he is a serious person whose companies pose no threat to the psychological formation of the nation’s young people. Yet here are Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Musk, willing to use the standing they have achieved in the U.S. business community to turn themselves into clickbait….Assuming they don’t fake the fight, it will be an embarrassing display of two prominent grown men in shorts rolling on the floor, pawing at each other’s flesh.” 

While neither of them lost their jobs or fortunes, their selfishness and disregard for norms set a noxious example for their many fans. 

Things can easily get out of hand when leaders feel free — or even incentivized — to act outrageously in their public-facing activities. They might yell at stock analysts during investor calls or fire off angry tweets at perceived enemies. Some might go out of their way to speak out self-righteously on controversial public issues, or engage in demonstrative gestures, with the primary goal of looking good to their peers and the media. 

It’s no mystery, however, why actions are more frequent now: they can deliver rewards. They draw intense media attention, boost social media follower counts, intimidate opponents, and build one’s reputation as a badass who can’t be trifled with. Once you find that outrageous behavior can be an express lane to fame and influence, it can be hard to resist any of those temptations.

But you probably should resist them. 

Even if some leaders get away with more than seems reasonable, most of us mere mortals will not be as fortunate if we copy their antics. If you care about what your colleagues will say about you in five, ten, or thirty years, that’s reason enough to take leadership seriously and treat your responsibilities with the gravitas they deserve.

A simple rule of thumb to keep this in check: How would you feel if your child engaged in a certain kind of behavior at school or among their peers? If words or deeds are too outrageous for a middle schooler, they are probably not worthy of a serious business leader. And when it comes to speaking out on controversial public issues, the problem is that few issues are truly unambiguous, and culture war controversies, in particular, inflame passions on all sides. Indulging in self-righteousness on nuanced subjects unrelated (or even tangentially related) to your business can easily backfire. The world is complicated and human beings are complicated, and sometimes two or more of your values will come into conflict. Be wary of the temptation to divide everyone into good people and bad people, or to treat nuanced issues as having binary answers — right or wrong, you’re either with us or against us.

As Warren Buffett once said, “It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.” 

Unserious behavior might win you some tactical advantages in the short run, or even in the medium run. But in the long run it will undermine your career, your team, your company, and especially your reputation. If you can avoid it, it will win you friends and admirers for life.

About The Systems Leader:

A groundbreaking blueprint for mastering “cross-pressures” in a rapidly changing world, teaching leaders to execute and innovate, think locally and globally, and project ambition and statesmanship alike—from a Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer and consultant to some of the biggest and most innovative CEOs.

Actionable and powerful, The Systems Leader is a playbook for riding turbulent waves instead of drowning in them—and for taking readers from chaos to clarity.

About Robert:

Robert Siegel is a Lecturer in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a venture investor, and an operator.

At the Stanford Graduate School of Business he has taught nine different courses, authored over 115 business cases, and led research on companies including Google, Charles Schwab, Daimler, AB InBev, Box, Stripe, Target, AngelList, 23andMe, Majid Al Futtaim, Tableau, PayPal, Medium, Autodesk, Minted, Axel Springer and Michelin, amongst others.

Robert is a Venture Partner at Piva and a General Partner at XSeed Capital. He sits on the Board of Directors of Avochato and FindMine, and led investments in Zooz (acquired by PayU of Naspers), Hive, Lex Machina (acquired by LexisNexis of RELX Group ), CirroSecure (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), Nova Credit, The League (acquired by Match Group), Teapot (acquired by Stripe), Pixlee (acquired by Emplifi), and SIPX (acquired by ProQuest).

He is the author of The Systems Leader: Mastering the Cross-Pressures That Make or Break Today's Companies, and The Brains and Brawn Company: How Leading Organizations Blend the Best of Digital and Physical.

He is the co-inventor of four patents and served as lead researcher for Andy Grove’s best-selling book, Only the Paranoid Survive.

Robert holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford University. He is married with three grown children.