In one the episodes of a famous serial of yesteryears, ‘I Love Lucy’, Keith comes home to find Lucy crawling around the living room looking for something. When he asks Lucy what she was doing, she informs him that she was looking for her earrings. When asked where she had lost her earrings in the living room, she replies, “No, I lost them in the bedroom, but the light is so much better out here !”

Similarly, for most of the CEOs, the “light is better” in places like, finance, marketing, strategic planning; away from the “low light” area of behavioural self-examination.

Even the progressive executives end up staying in “living room” by adopting management fads and leadership trends in search of painless remedies for their ills. While some of the remedies work for a while, the eventually leave them exposed to the very basic issues that caused the problem in the very first place.

Irony of the fact is that most of the executives are intuitive enough to understand all this. And many struggle to do anything substantive about it. Instead, they get overly involved in the details of their business, distracting themselves unconsciously from their personal leadership issues, often to the point of creating complexity where it should not exist. Struggling heads may disagree, giving a barrage of reasons which are mostly only symptoms of their trouble.

But the bottom line is - Being a CEO or heading a group is a tough challenge but not a complicated one !

What you have read above is a just a part of a very interesting book called “Five Temptations of a CEO” by Patrick Lencioni I read recently. Some very interesting insights, hence am tempted to share the same with all of you. In subsequent blog(s), I will write a gist of what I have read along with my own interpretations. And will simultaneously try to do justice to what has been written in this interesting book. A tough task, nevertheless worth putting in an effort.