A Leadership Dinosaur
Mark Wager is an international leadership expert who regularly runs programmes in Fiji. He is fully booked for his trip to Fiji in May. If you would like Mark to train your managers later in the year contact him at
There are many different types of leaders in the workplace, some of whom are inspirational, and make a real positive impact on those around them yet unfortunately this is not true for all leaders.
There are some leaders who apply techniques and practices that are outdated. Instead of empowering people they control them.
Instead of motivating people they are demoralising.
Instead of solving problems they create more work for everyone around them.
These leaders are best described as leadership dinosaurs – who hold teams and organisations, preventing them from fulfilling their potential.
About 65 million years ago, dinosaurs were the dominant species on the planet where early mammals were struggling to survive.
The difference was the ability for mammals to evolve. Mammals adapted to the changing environments while dinosaurs didn’t.
It’s our ability to evolve and adapt that determines success in both personal and professional lives. Nowhere is this more true than among leaders of today.
The successful leaders have the ability to adapt and evolve. They lead while others stay in the past which results in failure.
The dinosaur doesn’t have the ability to selfreflect, they just don’t have the necessary level of emotional intelligence. They don’t attribute their lack of career progression to anything they have or haven’t done. Instead they criticise those around them, especially anyone doing better than them.
Leadership dinosaurs live in the past
The most common leadership dinosaurs are people who achieved a certain level of success in their career, but now find their career has stalled. They are not going to progress while newer and younger co-workers move past them.
The dinosaur doesn’t have the ability to self-reflect, they just don’t have the necessary level of emotional intelligence.
They don’t attribute their lack of career progression to anything they have or haven’t done.
Instead they criticise those around them, especially anyone doing better than them.
As they start to struggle in the present they start thinking more about the past over-glorifying their past achievements. They show resistance to new ideas and believe nothing has to change unaware that change will occur regardless.
Leadership dinosaurs leaders are born not made
This outdated thinking originated in 1869 when Francis Galton, an English psychologist wrote the book Heredity Genius.
The book examined leadership qualities in families of powerful men, comparing the effectiveness of leaders to their fathers and their children. Francis Galton concluded that leadership was inherited and so began the idea that leaders were ‘born’ instead of being made.
This is incorrect. As the economy and society as a whole changed, opportunities that used to be exclusive to a small minority suddenly became available to more and more people.
It became clear that birthright had very little to do with leadership and instead leadership was established as a series of skills.
Leadership dinosaurs CONfiDENT
believe
are over
Because of their lack of emotional intelligence, they are unable to process their emotions and how their behaviour impacts those around them.
While most leaders are able to deal with the insecurities and selfdoubts that plague us, the leadership dinosaurs overcompensate by demonstrating over-confidence. These are the types of people who use every opportunity to tell you about what they have done in the past even if it appears to have no relevance to the current conversation.
They will fight to take credit for other people’s work.
If that doesn’t work, they will play down others success. They have deep insecurities and rather than accept them they pretend they do not exist.
Leadership dinosaurs value strength over humility
When people ask me what is the most valuable quality any leader
can possess, I always tell them that it’s humility.
Leadership is about putting the needs of other people over your own personal wants, lifting people up so that they know what they are capable of achieving.
Instead, they value strength above all other qualities. This translates into dismissing any idea or opinion that does not match their own.
Anyone who disagrees is automatically labelled a poor team player.
They fail to understand that humility is not a sign of weakness, but the ultimate demonstration of strength.
Leadership dinosaurs can turn into workplace bullies
If leadership dinosaurs are not identified and addressed, the organisation will have to face the consequences.
First, it will be the lack of productivity as people around the dinosaur become less and less motivated.
Then the complaints will start as the dinosaur will be accused of being a bully, something that they will desperately deny because from their point of view that are not being too tough.
Instead everyone else is too soft. This false belief will continue even as people start to leave and with each exit, their resistance to the truth builds.
Talented employees leave because they can while those who are not
able to find employment elsewhere stay and become disengaged with their work doing the minimum required to stay out of trouble.
How to handle leadership dinosaur
If any of the above descriptions sound familiar you have a leadership dinosaur in your organisation. It’s a problem that has to be addressed.
You need to ask yourself if you want to invest in keeping these people.
While they are poor leaders they may well have strong technical skills and lots of institutional knowledge.
Secondly you need to start coaching them, the traditional training workshops won’t work because a dinosaur doesn’t believe the problem is with them,
The only option is intensive oneon-one coaching, starting with selfawareness, and moving to modern techniques to motivate and lead people.
In business, like nature it’s the ones who are able to adapt that survive.
If you have leadership dinosaurs within your organisation, you need to help them adapt.
If you don’t you might find it’s your organisation that becomes extinct.