The leadership development industry, or what I sometimes call the leadership industrial complex, has one great skill. It can package a bunch of nothing as something and sell it to us at a premium. Amazingly, they’ve turned it into a $100 billion business that relies upon sounding wise without ever having done the thing they’re supposedly wise about.
The researcher who thinks a conversation with a grocery store clerk provided earth-shattering lessons on leadership. The professor of some human behavioral discipline that thinks the way to improved leadership is an elevated state of emotional being. The self-appointed executive coach who paid for some online certification that sounds legit and isn’t. The founder who benefitted from huge tailwinds and sold their company for millions and then anointed themself as an expert on leading people.
Different backgrounds, different credentials, different origin stories, but all having the same fatal flaw. None of them ever sat where you sit right now. And all they offer is platitudes.
The telltale sign that you’re dealing with someone who’s never actually led in a business environment is the product they’re selling. If the answer to your quarterly sales shortfall, your disengaged people, or your missed project deadline, is an elevated emotional state, run away.
Gallup says manager engagement was 31% in 2022. Two years later it was 27%. Last year, it sunk to 22%. It’s down nine points since 2022, and down five in one year. Managers used to enjoy an “engagement premium” at work, but now they’re only as engaged as those they lead. So the people the leadership industrial complex has been “helping” for decades are the ones cratering fastest. I smell smoke.
The house is on fire. You called the fire department and they sent over the dalmatian as your support animal while you watched the flames consume everything. That’s the leadership development industry in a nutshell. The mascot always shows up. The people who could actually fight the fire never do.
And why should they stop? They urge us to stay the course for one more year, buy the premium membership, unlock the secrets. Because our confusion is their business model. Our stagnation is their revenue stream.
But before pulling out your credit card to buy the book, sign up for the course, or book the keynote, check out their online profile. Read their bio. Have they ever been responsible for delivering results, hiring and developing people, managing performance, and improving speed and quality, all at the same time, all under pressure, in an actual business? Not studied it. Not observed it. Not interviewed people who did it. But did they ever do it themselves? If the answer is anything other than yes, swipe left.
My knee is gimpy. Undoubtedly from years of misuse or overuse (most likely both). I need options. I know it’s down to surgery, physical therapy, or maybe even peptides. But I need expert advice. Should I find a researcher who has studied, surveyed, and interviewed the top doctors about their ‘why’ for choosing orthopedics as their specialty? Or do I choose a highly experienced, well-regarded surgeon who’s done thousands of surgeries and seen every anomaly and complication imaginable?
Clearly, I want someone who’s had their hands in countless knees and knows exactly what to do in every situation. Not someone who wrote a book on the musical choices successful surgeons make in their ORs. Duh. I go with the surgeon.
That’s how it works. You look to experienced practitioners in their field for the best possible advice and counsel. Need some advice on a strange noise your car is making? Ask a mechanic. Not your rideshare driver.
But what’s uniquely absurd and inexcusably broken about our industry, the leadership development industry, is that the people we look to for expert advice are those who’ve never done the thing we need help with. And that’s an indictment of them, for taking advantage of us. But it’s also an indictment of us for continuing to buy it, while leadership effectiveness declines and burnout rises. House. On. Fire.
When the people you go to for leadership advice haven’t experienced leading and have only observed it from the outside, they’re simply unable to help you. Deep down, you already know that. There’s no substitute for experience when it comes to having too few resources, too many competing goals, and a boss that makes your job harder, not easier.
The veterans of leadership in business are an exclusive club. It’s one you can’t join unless you’ve done it. For many years. In many different roles and scenarios. That’s why the ONLY people I ever sought out for guidance were the ones who’d worked their way up through the ranks against headwinds. They understood my struggles and had real world advice born out of hard-won lessons. They were the only ones who’d been in the crucible. They’d done it. Not theorized about it. And that made their advice immediately applicable to me, my work, my challenges.
So why are the people who’ve never felt the crushing weight of leadership in business the ones writing the user guide for it? They’ve gotten really good at making their own fake IDs. TED Talk views, bestseller lists, and podcast downloads became their substitute for real-world experience. That is their way past the velvet rope and into the club reserved for practitioners.
For decades, we’ve been taking our guidance on how to become better leaders from the wrong people and the wrong places. We’ve been listening to the wrong podcasts, reading the wrong books, and following the wrong voices.
We need the fire department. Not the dalmatian.
