Drive vs. Greed

Hello everybody, Dennis Engelbrecht with Digging Deeper.

Today I wanted to talk about a fatal flaw as we call it, sometimes in leadership. And many years ago, we created this list
really on behalf of one of our clients and did it in one of our round table groups, where we were assessing some of the
future leaders, and actually in this case children of the owner for their potential to be in leadership. And we came up with
this really terrific list of the characteristics of good leaders. And then at the end of course, we had sort of our fatal flaws,
the ones we didn't want to have, and that we thought really killed their chance to be an effective leader.

So, I wanted to talk about one of those fatal flaws today, but the nuance of this fatal flaw is that it's very closely related
to one of the positive indicators. And what that is, is drive as the positive indicator, and greed as the fatal flaw. Now, if
you think about this, and I always have to think about myself when I was in my 20s and probably pretty high ego, and
probably unfortunately led with my ego a lot. And I think I was a individual of high drive. And drive is probably a good
thing. That desire to do better, to achieve more, the desire to lead, the desire to be your best, the desire to have a greater
impact on the world or on society. I can remember that wanting to be president thing.

The reason you want to be president, I guess if you're driven, is to be able to impact more people. But now when does
that turn to greed? The greed to want to be president, in order to be in charge and feel that ego boost. Now, that's a
slightly different thing. But coming back to greed, as I think about greed, I really think about greed being the willingness
to fulfill these goals at the expense of others. Or you might even say at all costs. So, I'm sure in your organization you've
probably got some folks in their 20s and young 30s especially where you're seeing this drive, and you're wondering is this
drive or greed? Because at times you may see behaviors that may be cross the line. And I think it is hard to tell.

And I think sometimes in young people there may be a maturity aspect to this because at first you think, that drive to
succeed, and do well it may be too easy to forget the end purpose [sooner 00:03:09] to possibly do that on the backs of
others. But if you can make that differentiation, it's going to help you decide which folks to back for that future leadership,
or on the other hand, which folks not to back, or in the more humane sense, which ones need a good stern talking to, to
make sure that they understand the difference between drive and greed.

And the difference really is in two ways. One is the how. If you're driven, how do you get ahead? How do you achieve
that? Is it on the backs of others’ efforts? Or is it by being able to engage others to join you in an effort that benefits
everybody? And then to what purpose? Is it for you as an individual or that individual to be able to make more money, or
to be, again, be in charge, or is the purpose? The organizational purpose for the company be able to do better. So, it's an
interesting nuance. But where oftentimes in our round table programs, we have this great advantage of, we go through
these interviews. And when you interview the people around you, or let's just say you do a 360 assessment on an
individual, that's where you can oftentimes find out how the coworkers are feeling. And the coworkers probably really
sense that difference between drive and greed.

So, I encourage you to take advantage of that to, in some cases, if you're unsure, check with the coworkers. And by the
way, that 360 is a great way to be able to then talk to that individual and make sure that they understand where their
values are. Is it drive to get ahead and be the best and bring the organization along? Or is it greed to get ahead at the
expense of others?

Again, Dennis Engelbrecht, Digging Deeper. Hope to see you again next week. Thanks.