I know that many of my readers are either current or aspiring business leaders.\u00a0 Having a leadership position comes with many benefits:\u00a0 self-satisfaction, higher pay, the opportunity to make more of an impact in business and the world, and the opportunity to leave a meaningful legacy.<\/p>\n
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Like just about anything with attractive advantages, there are disadvantages.\u00a0 One such disadvantage is the vulnerability of your reputation and legacy.<\/p>\n
There is a lot of professional and personal scrutiny that leaders have to endure.\u00a0 A leadership position brings with it certain standards of behavior.\u00a0 And if those standards aren\u2019t met by a leader, the public will be far less forgiving compared to how they may react if a non-leader behaved identically.\u00a0 As the saying goes, \u201cthe bigger they are, the harder they fall.\u201d<\/p>\n
A leader certainly can make \u2013 and survive \u2013 business mistakes.\u00a0 When you take business risks and break new ground over the course of a career, you can earn a veritable pass when some risks don\u2019t pay off and your reputation will remain largely intact.<\/p>\n
History\u2019s best leaders have made major business mistakes.\u00a0 That\u2019s because they didn\u2019t play it safe.\u00a0 Because playing it safe never results in game-changing breakthroughs.\u00a0 Middle management in companies everywhere is filled with people who are scared to make decisions, always play it safe, and will never be a household name.\u00a0 So, as a leader or aspiring leader, expect to make business mistakes if you have any desire to be remembered as a great leader.<\/p>\n
But, if you want to be a great leader and leave a great legacy, there is one type of mistake that you should never make.\u00a0 If you make such a mistake, you will have a hard (or, more likely, impossible) time overcoming it.<\/p>\n
No self-respecting subordinate would want to follow you.<\/p>\n
No self-respecting board of directors would want to hire you.<\/p>\n
No client would want to be associated with putting money in your pocket.<\/p>\n
What type of mistake am I talking about?<\/p>\n
A moral mistake.<\/p>\n
Though many people think moral mistakes are easy to avoid because there is a clear distinction of right and wrong, by the volume of celebrities, sports stars, politicians, government officials, and, yes, business leaders who make them, it is clear that there is not nearly enough guidance for avoiding moral mistakes.\u00a0 The following are some examples of moral mistakes to avoid at all costs if you wish to be, and leave the legacy of being, a great leader.\u00a0 Some of the examples are also illegal activities but are included because they too represent mistakes that are almost impossible to overcome:<\/p>\n
It is important to remember that today\u2019s world is very technology-driven.\u00a0 Any thing you say or do can be recorded and shared with anyone in the world via ubiquitous smart phones and the Internet. And by its very nature, that \u201cevidence\u201d might never go away, possibly eternally inhibiting your ability to leave a positive legacy no matter what you\u2019ve done in the past or what you will do in the future.<\/p>\n
Just this week, I encountered a video that was being passed around on a social network.\u00a0 This video was of a sporting event where a spectator was, over the period of more than 10 minutes, repeatedly making obscene gestures that were caught by the television network\u2019s camera.\u00a0 I was horrified to realize that I had met the offender as he is also an entrepreneur who has attended some of the same events I have.<\/p>\n
There is a risk that this guy could essentially have all of his clients decide to not be associated with such behavior and pull their business from his successful company which, heretofore, has built a very respectable reputation.\u00a0 He could literally lose everything.\u00a0 He should feel fortunate that neither the video nor the accompanying article mentioned him by name and the activity was probably too obscene for some people to share with their friends and some news sources to share with their readers\/viewers, limiting how widely seen it becomes.\u00a0 He may have dodged a bullet that could have destroyed everything he had worked for in his entrepreneurial career.\u00a0 It still could \u2013 remember that once a photo or video is on the Internet, it may never go away.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s hope that he learned from this close call and will never make such a stupid moral mistake again.<\/p>\n
So, as you climb the ladder of leadership in your career, remember that there are some mistakes you can make and get away with.\u00a0 Those are the mistakes that are just part of business.<\/p>\n
But if you want to leave an impressive and untarnished legacy of leadership, don\u2019t let yourself ever make a moral mistake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I know that many of my readers are either current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n