There are pivotal moments that can ruin promising careers. Don’t lose it all because you were self-focused and couldn’t stop yourself.
I learned a lot about how the brain works while in grad school. One thing I learned is that the brain largely works through inhibition. That is, you don’t so much “hit the gas” to do something as opposed to “tap the brakes” to ensure the right things happen.
Think about that one moment where you wanted to do something so bad but decided not to. It could be something innocent, like wanting to call in sick and sleep longer but you went to work anyway. More dramatically, it could be something like a time when you wanted to yell at your boss but kept your mouth shut instead.
Most decisions have a small blast radius, but there exist a small number of pivotal decisions with the power to blow up entire careers. The ability to stop yourself and inhibit your initial response is a critical skill for leadership. It really is the thing that separates long-term success from sudden and dramatic failure. This is because it takes years to build the foundation for success and only moments to tear it all down.
Let’s explore four short examples where leaders, and people that I had respected, threw it away.
It’s not your money
An acquaintance was the head of a local city department. He was seen as an effective leader, well liked by his staff and city leadership. Things were going well, but this individual had a deep political streak. The Republican candidate for mayor stopped by his office and they talked about how desperately the city needed conservative leadership. The acquaintance agreed, and (allegedly) gave the candidate money out of the petty cash box to help fund his campaign. Let’s pause for a second. This was city money given to a political candidate – a huge mistake. A disgruntled member of his staff reported the incident and the leader was investigated by law enforcement. He quit the job and moved out of town before he would be forced to step down. Years of investment gone in an instant because he couldn’t stop himself in that moment.
Don’t date your followers
A new minister moved to town and was a huge hit with his congregation. He brought a new, youthful energy to his work that inspired and invigorated the church. Over several years he built a dynamic new organization, always pushing to do more and serve the community in new ways. This included helping to heal wounds from decades past, when a previous minister engaged in unprofessional sexual conduct with congregants. The new minister was a superstar.
Five years after he first arrived the minister was leaving for a larger role with a bigger congregation. As he moved away it became apparent that the minister was cheating on his wife with one of the local congregants. He continued to behave badly in his new role. Three years later he was under investigation and put on administrative leave for inappropriate relationships with congregants. He was dismissed from the congregation and ultimately resigned his fellowship with the larger faith pending allegations of ministerial misconduct. An incredibly promising minister and a career that benefitted hundreds or thousands of people – all of it thrown away because he couldn’t be trusted with the people of his congregation(s).
Perceptions matter
The best conference I attended while in academia was the “New Horizons in Human Brain Imaging” gathering in Hawaii. Small conference. Great talks. Amazing location. On the last night of the conference in 2010 I was with several attendees in the hot tub hanging out and talking shop. As we talked one of the professors and a postdoc started touching and whispering to each other. They jumped out of the hut tub and chased each other around for a minute before chasing each other into the bushes. Another attendee mentioned “isn’t he married?”, to which a second member of the hot tub responded in the affirmative. Rumors only grow after an episode like that. Conversation about the conference continued for years afterward.
The ultimate misappropriation of trust
The worst cases of professional malpractice were those I saw in grad school. Twenty years ago the Psychological and Brain Sciences department at Dartmouth College had a very permissive atmosphere. The lines between professors, postdocs, and grad students got very blurry. It was not unusual to walk into a local bar* and see professors drinking with grad students like they were in their 20s again.
The grad students knew which professors were “handsy” and who got a little too close for comfort. Several people switched labs when they found out the hard way that their advisor was a creep. Some had affairs with professors. Permissiveness continued to escalate over time. Eventually, three professors clearly crossed the line and were dismissed. The resulting lawsuit cost the College at least $14M dollars. The details of the situation are worth their own separate post, but suffice it to say that three promising professors ruined their reputations and their careers because they couldn’t control themselves**. More critically, they hurt a lot of people over many years in the process. The misconduct allegations in 2018 were a contributor to the department chair taking his own life one year later.
Summary
I have heard leadership defined as helping any group of two or more people achieve their common goals. We leverage respect, influence, and power to make that happen and move our group toward those goals. That same respect, influence, and power can also be misappropriated to further selfish ends. This action is incisive, and it cuts deep. Not only do we abuse the trust of those within our leadership but we harm our own advancement by behaving badly.
Don’t fall into this trap. Don’t throw away your shot at greatness. Make sure to hit the brake pedal when the time is right. It matters, both to you and the people under your leadership.
* Hanover, NH was a small town of 8,000 people, so you run into others often.
* All the more ironic that a key area of research for one of the professors was failure of self-regulation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062191/
Photo: A Founder’s Fizz, from the Richard Rodgers Theatre in 2016 as we watched Lin-Manuel Miranda and the original cast of Hamilton perform. “My Shot” is one of the best songs of the show.