What makes someone superior

I love your suggestion of pretending to have more ears in order to concentrate on listening. I think body imagery is a fantastic tool for learning to change any behavior, leadership included. When leaders are self-absorbed, power hungry and act superior, employees notice.

You begin to see lack of collaboration,dissatisfaction and low morale resulting in high turnover. There will be no one left to lead if you think success is all about YOU. It was in Lee Iacocca was brought in as Chairman to save Chrysler from almost certain bankruptcy.

His basic plan was to efficiently design and produce more fuel-efficient and less expensive vehicles—and compete worldwide. Iacocca knew his greatest asset was his staff, and so they would be his greatest investment. His covenant was to instill self-respect in his employees and, respect for them among the public. His leadership philosophy which he believed and advocated for all of his staff—from each worker to every manager—was that staff wanted to do a good job, they wanted to respect where they worked, they identified with the organization that helped them grow, they wanted to be part of something significant, and they were proud of telling others where they worked.

I see this as downside-up leadership—which from quality leadership comes quality of employee attitudes and thus quality products and services. While many leaders think they sit at the top of the pyramid, Lee Iacocca actually proved the reverse to be true.

Iacocca believed the best management sees the employee at the top of an inverted pyramid. Thus, in a downside-up organization, the best performers seek ways their management can help them achieve their goals. Only a downside-up leader can see the logic and purpose behind turning the focus of management inside out—taking the emphasis away from satisfying the organization and putting employees first.

And look what he achieved. Absolutely correct. In science and engineering, synergy and collaboration are essential. Nobody kids themselves that Salk created his vaccine by himself.

Salk led a team, and he understood he succeeded because of them. Then it becomes a matter of time, when one or the other will prevail. Fortunately, there is all this diversity, and if not for that, problems would not be solved.

Because he came from rather humble beginnings, I always wondered if his parents merely hoped that their newborn infant would turn out to be normal—because we know he was afflicted with neonatal respiratory disease and on the verge of death in his first 20 days of life.

Or, were his parents faithfully aware this fairly contented offspring would one day in the course of time going to make a discovery that would eradicate a crippling and fatal plague like polio? Books, Salk had no interest in medicine as such when he was a child, and was considering going into law.

He was interested in the science of human beings. Salk has been a hero of mine since I was a kid, so he was the obvious example for me to use, but there are others great scientific leaps that were team efforts: Crick and Watson had a team, Fleming had a team, Waksman had a team.

The ultimate team, in many ways was the Manhattan Project. Could any one of them have done it? And they were clever enough to know it. This is very true and legitimate. I believe a leader serves rather than to be served.

Great post. On an emergency scene, this may be manifested as feeling and acting as though subordinates are inferior in their knowledge, skills and abilities. It can be compounded by the supervisor making overt statements that affirms his or her superiority over the subordinate, often in the presence of others affirming to the ill-minded leader their sense of superiority.

This can have dangerous consequences for first responder safety. The Superior, plagued with an over inflated ego and a low self-esteem, rarely accepts responsibility for their flawed decisions or poor situational awareness.

Rather, they are far more likely to find a subordinate to blame. Occasionally there may even be a boss to blame. But never are mistakes the fault of the Superior leader. This can make for a miserable existence among followers who know that, even if things are going to hell in a hand basket, the Superior leader is not going to welcome feedback or suggestions.

There are three types of situational awareness a responder needs to be concerned about. First is personal situational awareness. This is the situational awareness you have about yourself, your abilities and limitation, your task and your surroundings. Second is team situational awareness. Situational awareness is, therefore, not just something developed and maintained at the individual level. Rather it is also developed and maintained at the company and command level as well.

For situational awareness to be strong, it must be shared, or perhaps more appropriately stated, ,commonly understood among all responders. In my programs I use a simplified analogy that mental models are similar to little movies playing in your head that allow you to understand what is happening and, perhaps even more importantly, what will happen at some point in the future.

Two teams or a team and a supervisor who do not have shared mental models are, in effect, watching different movies.

Consequently, expectation about the outcomes are likely to be very different. The Superior e. And, if others share their situational awareness with the Superior and it does not align, the Superior may become defensive and may even launch a verbal attack on the subordinate. The best practices of leadership can be difficult to apply to individuals with special challenges e.

For example, it would be a standard expectation that a supervisor or company officer would want to do everything within his or her power to keep members safe, even if it meant admitting having flawed situational awareness and asking for help to fix the problem.

Safe from what? Safe from ridicule and safe from embarrassment. The fear of the consequences of being seen as wrong are greater than the fear of the consequences of making a decision that results in a casualty.

You can see why this is a really dangerous mindset. Rather, the best place to begin making headway on this problem is during a casual discussion about the best way to let someone know they are wrong. You could start with a very simple and obvious scenario. The Intuitive trait is the key to this apparent paradox, a trait that Diplomat personalities share with Analysts.

Although we may base our judgments of others on observable facts, like exam scores, when we can, how often do we have actual evidence regarding less tangible characteristics, like virtuousness or trustworthiness? My life looks great by comparison. Since the Explorer and Sentinel Roles encompass both Thinking and Feeling personality types, their responses were quite divided.

But all Explorers and Sentinels are Observant types, and that made their overall agreement lower. Observant personality types, in contrast, like to stay grounded in reality and focused on the present. For Sentinels, especially, that ability to remain impartial is what makes them so effective in roles as governors, judges, and administrators. The Turbulent members of the Social Engagement and Constant Improvement Strategies are always thinking about how they can improve, and as such, they tend to have self-esteem issues and to require more external validation than Assertive personalities do.

Without knowing that someone is below them in the pecking order, these personality types may feel that their position is inherently precarious. The Assertive trait that defines the People Mastery and Confident Individualism Strategies makes these personality types less likely to agree with our statement. Particularly confident People Masters and Confident Individualists may actually regard their own superiority as a simple matter of fact.

There is a fine line between a healthy sense of competition, the kind that drives personal development and greater innovation alike, and a potentially destructive need for self-aggrandizement. Some personality types may have a harder time negotiating this line than others.