consider this tale from a new client of mine: i’m from the midwest where anyone behaving like this would be shunned immediately. we had an ‘all hands’ meeting recently and our ceo asked the semi-rhetorical question, “what’s the most important asset this company has?” stupidly, people started offering answers. he listened briefly but then barked, “no! it’s me. no one has my skills, my contacts, my credibility. before I came, this company was a failure.” (the latter, by the way, is not true). did it again in a presentation with our sales team. he walked to the front of the room and wrote on the whiteboard: FAILURE. “this is what this place was before I came,” he said. then he began crowing about how only he really understood the customer’s needs. while he does have insight and vision, he’s such a bully and his achilles heel is that he’s never able to listen to anyone else with ideas or input. swear on the bible. he actually says “no one is more important or smarter than i am.” unreal! funny how this behavior runs rampant where people are unsure of themselves.
