In my previous posts In Egypt, Are we hypocrites? and From Good to Great, what makes outstanding performances I have highlighted how I have seen vulnerability as a source of inspiration, progress and beauty.
“You should be grateful that I didn’t bring you the police to arrest you, right here, right now”
This was the CEO’s opening statement to my semi-requested termination meeting during an innovation program in Berlin. Less than 48 hours before, the most senior executive, who also won Europe’s top CMO of the year award a year before, has approached me with a warm personal congratulation for what he described as an “outstanding performance”.
As entrepreneurial leaders, CEOs and business executives we often operate in highly competitive environments and face highly intense and complicated conflicts that could cause severe consequences to someone’s career or wellbeing.
Not all leaders play fair and deciding on a course of action while being in the middle of such situations could be overwhelming. Often those who naturally have certain characteristics and experiences in facing conflicts are able to maintain a balanced outlook
Harassment, dominance and leverage control, workplace mobbing and incitement of mobbing is a phenomenon that faces emerging leaders more frequently than others.
Emotional and Psychological abuse is said to be more damaging than Physical Abuse. Physical abuse always leaves visible marks and can be situational traced back to incidents, though emotional and psychological abuse in most cases is extremely hard to trace, which makes it a popular practice for weak leaders and entities.
Also, those who experience emotional and psychological abuse over a period of time experience changes in their behavior and attitude that makes them vulnerable to have their behavior used against them.
As 31 years old entrepreneur, I have survived several incidents of incitement of mobbing and I have provided support and still providing support to entrepreneurs and executives while going through mobbing experiences.
People and organizations are often very afraid of change and this makes a certain type of leaders exercise incitement of mobbing as a tool for dominance and leverage control. I’m not surprised anymore to hear the names of individuals who were involved in mobbing experience.
You are an emerging leader who intimidates those above you
You are spending your time getting things done and not building relationships
You are not aware of group dynamics and positional power and leverage control
You are not protected by strong leaders / institutions above you
Your behavior allows others to take advantage of you
I decided that in the next 10 years, I’m going into Global Trade and Investment on behalf of Generation-Y in Egypt well, he mumbled, you were just complaining about corruption and power struggles in your local Cairo community, now you are about to kick ass with the most powerful people in the world? You think you are ready for this?
My presentation during Google Ebda2 Crash Courses about Presenting to the Public
Alright,
A bit over a year ago, as I went through From Good to Great for Jim Collins, I was inspired by the topic to research more of what makes outstanding performances, the book talks to CEOs about building resilient companies, finding the hedgehog concept of their companies and flow in greatness…
As I reflect on my almost 4 years of intriguing and challenging research into balanced human behavior, my seemingly random choice of flight movies seemed to trigger more thoughts, but not this time, this time, I will go all the way to an animated feature, something more light and less philosophical.
Tech Entrepreneur, engineer, teacher and researcher.
