Welcome to the Monthly Newsletter by Amer Kaissi 

Edition #8, June 2020

Not everyone is a leader! And most importantly, not everyone should try to become one!

Wait! What?

Yes, that is the main message from Patrick Lencioni’s latest book “The Motive,” which was published a couple of months ago. Lencioni, a leadership consultant and author of numerous books, argues that there are only two motives that drive people to become a leader. The first one is they want to serve others and to do whatever is necessary to bring about something good for people they lead. These people should definitely try to become leaders since they understand that sacrifice and suffering are inevitable in this pursuit and that serving others is the only valid motivation for leadership.

The second motive why people choose to be a leader is a very common but invalid one: they want to be rewarded. They see leadership as the prize for years of hard work and are drawn by its trappings such as attention, power and money. These people should not become leaders. The main reason is that once in a leadership position, they try everything to avoid the unpleasant situations and activities that leadership requires, such as building their teams, managing their subordinates, having difficult conversations, running great meetings, and communicating constantly with their employees.

I have to admit that I have not always been a fan of Lencioni. Early in my career, I didn’t think very highly of his books and his advice. If I am being honest, it was probably due to my academic snobbish attitude since his work is not research-based. But over the years I came to realize that what Lencioni lacks in evidence, he more than makes up in his intuition, intelligence and experience working with leaders. With more intellectual humility on my part, I’ve grown to appreciate his stuff. Plus, his leadership fables are so interesting.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of the Newsletter. Every month, I will share with you one leadership or management book that I am reading, and tell you what I learned from it.

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Dr. Amer Kaissi is a Leadership Keynote Speaker and a workplace culture and high-performance teams’ expert.