You are Master and Head of your organization.  You are issuing orders and tendering wisdom. You are making decisions and are growing weary of the idiots.  You deal with issues fast, aggressively and with authority.  Everyone reports to you and does not make a move without you. You want more.

It is very possible that YOU are the weakest link in your domain, and do not even know it.

There stands a great possibility that you are the soft spot in the Critical Value Chain which makes up your organization.  Do not confuse authority and centralization of power, with competence or ability.  All too commonly those who are ushered into positions of power and entitlement fast, lack essential touches of humility borne from facing diverse challenges, and stand bereft of a full understanding of organizations and human nature.  These persons are the main problem their organizations face, they are less informed than they imagine, and make bad decisions more often than their underlings let them know.  And everyone sees it but the perpetrator himself.

Jim Collins, in his groundbreaking treatise on executive management, Good to Great cited the character of a Level 5 Executive as follows:

Level 5 Leaders

… are Executives who ‘build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.’

Humility – The decision to align one’s will with the greater good.  Humility is NOT exhibited by how one regards their self, but rather in how they regard others

Professional Will – The decision to align one’s will with the greater good, the professional good, and not the personal good – this involves knowing when to not control, ease your hand on the tiller and allow those who are in your charge to SHINE

The SSkeptic, master of wisdom and self-sought central authority of correctness; granted entitled position to control, filter and manage his domain, suffers fully from critical blindness.

Theses masters of entitlement suffer from a form of stultifying inability to witness the damage caused by their own hands. No longer aware that they are the main destructive force in their social structure or organization, they careen through life, growing ever skeptical of those under their charge and ever more arrogant, impatient and angry at what appears to them to be a lack of competence or performance by underlings.  They grow to mistrust almost everyone, except a few in a central approved circle of peers.

Critical Blindness – The mental obstacle created in a person granted entitled authority before they are ready, wherein they lose their ability to create, to gracefully understand or value the dynamics of human nature, motivation and leadership; descending further into shallow and habitual negative critical assessments of those ‘under’ or different from them, coupled with an ever growing hunger for absolute control.

Ten concealed factors, I have observed during my decades of business advisement regarding critical blindness are:

Contributors to Critical Blindness – THE TEN –

I.  The Desire to Control

II.  Disdain for Thought Diversity

III.  Entitled Social Celebrity Status

IV.  Self Sought Notoriety

V.  A Concealed Focus on Money

VI.  Luxury of A Perceived Enemy

VII.  A History of Sycophancy

VIII.  Thirst for Absolute Authority

IX.  Excess Time Spent on One Domain

X.  Mental Illness