Back Burner Leadership: How to Become a Leadership Failure with Five Simple Ingredients

The back burner on the stove is typically used to allow something to cool off or simmer. Literally, the back burner is where something becomes lukewarm. A lukewarm leader looks like a leader from position and posture, but in reality, his influencing presence is felt through absence or dominance. Too many leaders have pushed the very qualities that brought them to a position of influence to the back burners of their leadership lives. Their influence has cooled off and priorities have become confused by simmering too long. The back-burner leader is proud, lukewarm and non-engaged…

…Welcome to the Back Burner.

When a leader’s influence diminishes the leader is usually the last one to know. This is a terrible place to be in as a leader. Without trusted-advisers that truly act as truth-tellers, the leader wallows in self-exile and isolation on the back-burner. Positionally, the leader is still in the same place, but influentially, ground has been lost. The leader begins to feel out of touch and will exert leadership influence wrongly to make himself feel valued or “in touch” in his organization. The leader begins to experience a heightening level towards others of annoyance, that moves to frustration, that turns to resistance and ultimately ends with failure and even destruction.

Ingredients that Make the Back Burner Leader:

#1- Not My Problem

This attitude believes that every problem is someone else’s fault, not the leaders.In reality,  not every problem is the leader’s fault, but a leader must take responsibility for organizational problems. Leaders that refuse to accept personal responsibility for the issues, concerns and results of their organization are piloting a sinking ship. No one can bail water fast enough when the leader has set a course that hits an iceberg and then, subsequently, blames everyone else on board for the crisis.

#2 – Entitlement

When the Leader feels entitled he takes perks and privileges that no one else is allowed to. Entitlement is an isolated elevator to the penthouse of arrogance and aloofness. The entitled leader will disparage those in the organization and treat them as underlings, because, the rules apply to everyone else but the leader. The leader is entitled, and should be looking from the highest vantage point in the organization, but it doesn’t mean he should live at the highest point! When a leader divorces himself from the foundation of the organization, he is placing the organization in imminent danger. A leader must always remember how the organization has been built, who has been building it, and

Leaders must be on-guard against an arrival mindset. An arrival mindset is a prideful, complacent attitude that says that the journey is over and the victory has been won. Entitlement and an arrival mindset are deeply intertwined. They reinforce one another. To combat this, a leader must view himself as a servant and a sojourner who is always in the state of preparation for departure. Arriving hastens a lukewarm attitude.

#3 – Unbridled Thought & Speech

After a leader feels entitled, his thoughts and his tongue often become unbridled. Unbridled means unrestrained, wild, cavalier, and often reckless.  Why? Because of two reasons: (a) In his mind he has “arrived” and (b) he IS THE accountability of the organization. Just about everyone who is in the organization is trying to climb or maintain their present position. They feel the accountability of both peers and superiors, thus feeling restraint.  The leader, who in his mind has arrived, can very easily cast aside this critical restraint. This lack of restraint plugs up his ears and loosens his tongue. He quickly becomes master-of-all and servant-of-none.  This is a great danger to the organization as well as the individual. This is why so many leaders fall from grace.

#4 – Priority Mash-Up

Very often, the poorer you are the simpler your priorities are or the greater clarity you have with which to view them. The wealthier you are the more complicated your priorities become. Wealth does not give greater insight or clarity. Rather, wealth has a devious way of clouding priorities.

The leader must therefore, always consider himself poor: poor in knowledge, poor in resources, poor in thought, poor in station & poor in spirit.  This self-viewed poverty is not a delusion of reality, but rather, a careful consideration of self-induced servility. In short, this view is humility. Humility can produce great clarity. Confused, clouded priorities create a chaotic organization with ever-decreasing effectiveness and diminishing influence.

#5 – Pride

This is the most detrimental ingredient of all. It is very easy for a leader to mask his pride. In fact, many leaders and their followers mistakenly discount this pride/arrogance as something more trivial and it’s referred to “impatience,” “stubbornness” or “individuality.” Often, with wealth or station this arrogant behavior is excused by those in the organization as “creativity,” “passion,” or “oddities.” The leader, enabled by sycophant followers will believe this kind of arrogant behavior, actually, helps the organization. But the bottom line of pride is that it always is a blinding agent. Because pride blinds a back burner leader, the production of the leader will lead to destruction.

Leaders and followers alike would do well to heed the words of the wealthiest human to ever live, King Solomon of Israel, “when pride comes, then comes disgrace” and “pride comes before destruction”  (Proverbs 11:6 & 16:18).

The result of arrogance is destruction. The product of pride is disgrace.

The sad state of leadership is such that we have more books, seminars, and instruction on the very topic, but seemingly, more frustration among followers and organizations that are being led by back-burner leaders. For the leader and follower alike, the solution to moving from the back-burner to the fore-burner is simple: humility. Humility re-establishes and clarifies organizational priorities. Humility gives wise counsel a platform for influence. Humility distinguishes between what’s pressing and what’s important.

A lukewarm leader is not a joy to follow, produces little by way of lasting influence, and ultimately is leading the organization to greater frustration and avoidable adversity.