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“The greatness of a leader will determine achievement of success. The weakness of a leader will drag his followers into defeat.”
A leader takes a very vital role in winning a war. That’s shy in the book: “13 war strategies of Sun Tzu”, the figure of leader is the central point. The great capability of a leader will determine the success achieved. On the contrary, the weakness of a leader will take his followers into defeat. This war strategy of Sun Tzu is already more than 2500 years old but up to this moment it is still relevant in discussing the role of leaders.
In the first edition of “EXTRAORDINARY” magazine, I talked about 5 principles of leadership of Sun Tzu style. But now, I am going to talk about the opposite. It is discussed in chapter 8 about 9 variant which describes 5 weakness of a leader, surely this will be useful as a means to evaluate and appraise the quality of our leaders. Let us now look into the 5 weaknesses of leaders of Sun Tzu style.
1. A Reckless Leader Might Get Killed
In a war, courage is one power a leader must have. But, courage with no consideration comes with considerable risks of falling into defeat. Courage is not just a determination covered with recklessness. A leader who manages to go to war with no concept nor strategy is doomed to disastrous recklessness.
2. A Cowardly Leader Might Get Captured
A leader having a pretty soul laden with worries and fears will always hesitate in making decisions. If he keeps this attitude in any of his action, enemy would easily anticipate his moves. So in any opportunity he would fall into enemy’s hands.
3. A Temperamental Leader Might Easily Be Provoked
Anger will only sink a person to the “grave” of his ego which then easily plunge him into troubles. Emotional or temperamental attitude of a leader will fully expose him to provocation. This will eventually lead him into acting recklessly and fooling himself so a temperamental leader could very likely fall trapped into some “mud-hole” ready to ruin him.
4. A Megalomaniac Leader Might Easily Fall Victim To Slander
If a leader is too anxious to defend his honour and to glorify his status and position, it might make him an easy target of slander. Such a leader, especially in pursuing higher title, might tend to act recklessly to achieve his ambition. In such condition he might be accused of selfishly promoting himself while reglecting the true essence of his struggle.
5. A Submissive Leader Might Be Disappointed
Compassion is a noble character that must be firmly retained. Nevertheless a leader who is too easy to show compassion could just be disappointed. An excessively unconsidered compassion for his people will just cause troubles. Any policy decided only after much judgement is likely to waste so much time as to miss any good chance coming along at the time.
These five weaknesses of leadership of Sun Tzu style is highly relevant to today’s business condition. These weaknesses are commonly found everywhere. For example: price competition. A newly emerging communication gadget producer went straight to shake the market aggressively. Their advertising campaigns appreared everywhere. They even date “to challenge” rival products already having mature established market. But this brave action was not supported by a well-planned stocks and after sales service. So while the aggressive advertising campaigns did attract many customers, the stocks were not there to meet the demand. So such reckless courage eventually proved futile.
For another example we may see how goes the competition among big brands in retail business. As soon as one product comes out with aggressive promotion, its competitors, feeling threatened, will follow suit, even in wildly excessive style. The fund poured for promotion expenses is consequently just to appease emotional drive. The sooner one rival brand launches its new product, the sooner its rival product are extensively distributed in the market, even with no proper plan, as it is merely “to react” to the challenge its rival imposes. If business is run on such emotional judgement, it will only inflict “a war” that will exhaustingly consume up a lot of money and energy. Unconsciously they neglect the interest of consumers which should indeed be the main focus at the first place.
The two examples are just simple illustration of what we can see everyday. In truth, the essence of these five weakness of leadership can further be applied more in our lives at any field. Expectantly it would evoke our caution to keep improving and evaluating our efforts. So let us study and adopt this lesson of Sun Tzu as a “warning” to prevent us from getting trapped in attitudes that could weaken us. Aside from that, we must keep developing our leadership attitude based on mental value to achieve victory.
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