Why Some Successful Leaders Ultimately Fail

Guest Post by Ali Jafri

A lot has been written about why leaders fail. In fact, we have seen the public downfall of many leaders ranging from Donald Trump to Jim Bakker and from Richard Nixon to Jennifer Capriati in recent years. All these people were once dominating their respective industries but had to face public disgrace due to different reasons.

The main problem is that most of the leaders think that they are never going to fail catastrophically. They argue that they have worked hard and deserve to be on the top forever.

Unfortunately, the distance between being a beloved leader and a failure is quite too short. tweet this It isn’t always easy to determine why leaders fail. But here are some very common signs of approaching catastrophe which leaders should never ignore.

A Shift in Focus

One of the most common reasons leaders fail is the shift in focus which can occur in several ways. Sometimes leaders simply fail to identify what is important for their business. They get too distracted by what is happening around them. On other occasions, leaders let various traps such as wealth and fame take over and lose the sharp focus that drove them to stardom. All successful leaders have the ability to “think big” but when they lose focus, they start thinking small which ultimately results in their decline.

Poor Communication

Poor communication is the natural result of a lack of focus. If you, as a leader, can’t understand what you want to do, your followers won’t be able to understand your intent. When leaders are unsure and uncertain, they try to hide their confusion and subsequently, uncertainty and ambiguity prevails in the organization.

Risk Aversion

Fear of failure rather than the desire to succeed drive many leaders when they have to encounter a risk. Past achievements also put them under extra pressure and they start thinking whether or not they will be able to sustain outstanding performance. Leaders cannot take necessary risks when the fear of failure takes hold of them. They only want to follow proven methods and procedures but innovation which was an integral part of their early successes disappears from their armory.

Poor Self Management

If you don’t take care of yourself, nobody will. The same is true for leaders, no matter how powerful and popular they are. If you don’t have followers around you who are extraordinarily sensitive, chances are others will not pick up your signals of stress and fatigue. While leadership is rewarding, it is also tiring and cumbersome. Those leaders who ignore their mental, physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological well-being are destined to fail. tweet this

Lost Ethics

Two factors that determine the credibility of a leader are competency and character. No matter what business leadership development program you have taken, or what position you hold in an organization, your integrity will be called in question if there is a discrepancy between your competency and character. When a leader compromises his integrity and ethics for “greater benefits,” that is the moment when he starts his journey toward failure. tweet this

Lost Love

Last but not the least, when leaders no longer show interest in their business or move away from their first passion, they start heading towards disaster. In fact, you will start working for a cause that doesn’t mean much to you if you lost sight of the passion that compelled you to become a leader. To maintain the fulfillment of leadership, you must stick with what you love and what motivated you in first place. tweet this

Guest Author

Throughout his professional career Ali Jafri has been associated with globally recognized consulting firms, including PriceWaterHouse Coopers & Mercer consulting. Currently, he is working for Madinah Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship, Madinah, Saudi Arabia. He has moderated more than 100 Live Webinars on MILE’s platform by successfully engaging speakers from Top Academic Schools in the world and Global Consulting firms.

Ali Jafri is a Certified Practitioner of Personality & Preference Inventory program (PAPI) which is a Psychometric tool developed by Cubiks, an entity of PA Consulting U.K.