You're Working With The Wrong Leaders!

The corporate world has a leadership crisis, but it's not the crisis we think. We don't lack qualified candidates—we lack the courage to hire true leaders over comfortable replicas of the past.

There's a dangerous lie perpetuating in the corporate world, and I witnessed it again last week. A client is searching for a Vice President of Customer Care. Their job requirements read like a shrine to the past:

• 20+ years of industry experience
• Deep knowledge of specific markets
• Proven track record in the same sector
• Technical expertise in industry-specific tools
• History of similar roles at competitor companies

The irony is that this VP must centralize 15 country operations into one cohesive unit and create a revolutionary vision that transforms how they understand clients.

They're asking for a preservationist to do a revolutionary's job. How sad.

Their discomfort was palpable when I challenged the executive team on this contradiction.

Let's be brutally honest: When was the last time "20 years in the industry" translated to "visionary who breaks entrenched patterns"?

What organizations desperately need (but rarely hire for):

• The courage to challenge sacred cows over preserving the status quo
• The ability to unite diverse perspectives rather than command compliance
• The emotional intelligence to inspire greatness rather than demand performance
• The humility to learn from failure rather than the arrogance of "industry expertise"

In my 25 years of consulting, I've watched "perfect-on-paper" executives systematically dismantle organizational morale, resist necessary change, and drive companies into irrelevance.

POWER OVER PEOPLE: The Executive. Demands loyalty but creates fear. Speaks of innovation but punishes failure. Preaches teamwork but rewards individual performance. Drains energy from every room they enter. Guard their knowledge like a weapon. Their LinkedIn profile screams success while their team's eyes scream despair.

POWER WITH PEOPLE: The Leader. Earns loyalty by giving it first. Creates psychological safety for genuine innovation. Celebrates team achievement above personal glory. Leaves every conversation with people feeling more capable, not less. Shares knowledge as an accelerant. They have a team that would follow them anywhere, and competitors are trying desperately to hire them away.

When you prioritize industry experience over leadership capacity, you're not being strategic—you're being lazy. You're choosing the comfortable illusion of expertise over the messy reality of transformation.

The next time you review a job description that reads like a love letter to the status quo, ask yourself: Are we hiring someone to preserve our past or create our future?

Because you can't do both.