Power and politics are within most large organizations and can be useful towards the sustainability of an organization however, only when used effectively. Leadership plays a key role in the realm of power and politics and great leaders recognize their power however do not allow politics and ego to affect their decision making. A recent article posted on Forbes written by Roger Trapp discusses how two leaders realized this important realization the hard way. In fact one of them, Brandon Black the CEO of Encore Capital who took the reigns when the company was facing a crisis and was tasked to turnaround the situation looks back on his experience towards his realization.

Black recalls that when he took over the organizational executive leadership went into extreme conflict with one another and ego was playing a big role towards the conflict. Things got so bad that the team was not just fighting on issues of the organization however, were personally attacking each other. Black got so sick and tired of the fighting and the team loosing their focus and unable to get out of the storming phase that he decided to go to the begin, the norming stage by organizing leadership seminars to resolve the conflict. However, he soon realized that this was ineffective and organization’s crisis was worsening. He kept scratching his head on how to make the team work together and through that he came to the important realization “when you see everybody else as the problem maybe its you who has the problem” This is when he realized that maybe its his own ego that is causing the problem.

Through this he realized the evil of ego and he decided to try and fix this problem by changing the way he leads the team. To do this he decided to work on his ego and to try and accept responsibility instead of blame others to maintain his ego and status to set an example to his team that acceptance and moving on towards fixing the crisis is the only way towards the turnarounds success. This eventually worked with his team coming back on track and getting out of the storming stage and onto to the performing stage and the turnaround was successful.

In my opinion, I think this is a powerful lesson that all leaders can learn from. Power and politics do not limit an organization success however when ego takes over and power is miss used then the consequences can be devastating. I truly believe that great leaders acknowledge their power however, when they exert it they do so without their own ego getting in the way and only use it when thinking of the organizations long term sustainability. As the article ends, ” Working on yourself is the highest act of leadership” showing that when leaders acknowledge their power and their mistakes they will lead an organization towards success and sustainability.

Article Link: – https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogertrapp/2017/03/27/why-your-organization-needs-you-to-check-your-ego-at-the-door/#7b187b161bb6

Picture:  – Taken from the Article

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