Genuine bosses? I have had my share. In fact, in over 40 years of leadership experience, I’ve had way more genuine bosses than ones with leaders non genuine personality. And lots of experience studying leadership traits scattered all over the map. I am always trying to spot leaders who have a fake person personality.

Leadership is learned behavior that becomes unconscious and automatic over time.

Check out our thoughts on team leverage.

It’s important to realize that just because someone holds a position of leadership, doesn’t necessarily mean they should. Put another way; not all leaders are created equal. The problem many organizations are suffering from is a recognition problem – they can’t seem to recognize good leaders from bad ones.

Here is a short video on the leadership lessons from first follower.

In today’s article, I’ll address how to identify bad leaders by pointing out leaders non genuine personality traits that represent bad leadership.

Whether you’re building a business, a network, or friendships, you always want to look for people who are not genuine. After all, nobody wants to work or hang out with a phony. On the flipside, that goes for you, as well. Bet you never considered that.

Genuine.

It is one of the words used when I ask people to describe a highly effective leader.

When you ask them to define what the means, they often struggle.

In case you’re wondering, genuine means actual, real, sincere, honest. Genuine people are more or less the same on the inside as their behavior is on the outside. Unfortunately, it’s a tough quality to discern. The problem is that all human interactions are relative. They’re all a function of how we perceive each other through our subjective lenses.

Being genuine is also a rare quality. In a world full of phony fads, media hype, virtual personas, positive thinkers, and personal brands, everyone wants what they don’t have. Nobody’s content to be who they are, and, more importantly, nobody’s willing to admit to any of that – it’s becoming more and rarer all the time.

To help you identify this breed — in yourself, as well — this is how non genuine people behave.

Fake person … always seeking attention

They don’t need constant reinforcement of their ego. Where attention seekers have a hole that constantly needs to be filled, genuine people are already filled with self-confidence and self-awareness.

Need to be loved

The need to be loved is born of insecurity and narcissism. It creates a need to manipulate your own and other’s emotions. Confident and authentic people are simply themselves. If you like them, fine. If not, that’s fine, too.

Dealing with fake people … lack empathy 

Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO, the global innovation, and design firm, describes empathy as making an effort to “see the world through the eyes of others, understand the world through their experiences, and feel the world through their emotions.” Bad leaders don’t have this ability because they don’t care. Extraordinarily bad leaders address problems in the open public. They don’t coach; they make things personal and like to pass on the blame to specific employees and teams.

Non genuine leaders can’t see it 

Da Vinci once said: There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when shown, and those that do not see.

For those leaders in the second and especially third groups easily lose the confidence of those they are trying to lead. Their lack of vision cannot inspire teams, motivate performance, or create sustainable value.  A leader’s job is to align the organization around a clear and achievable vision. This cannot occur when the blind lead the blind.

Very gullible

Perhaps naïve folks can be easily fooled, but genuine people are not naïve. They’re grounded in reality, and that gives them a baseline from which they can tell when things don’t add up. There’s a big difference.

Never comfortable with their lives

In his late 70s, actor Leonard Nimoy said he was closer than ever to being as comfortable with himself as Spock appeared to be. Most of us struggle with that. As Henry David Thoreau observed, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Never say what they mean or walk the talk

They tend to overreach or exaggerate. They rarely keep their commitments. And they parse their words and can sugarcoat the truth. If you need to hear it, they’ll won’t tell you. They are the center of the universe.

High need for lots of ‘toys’

When you’re not comfortable with whom you are, you usually lot of external stuff to be happy. You look for happiness – outside yourself, your loved ones, and your work. You find happiness in the pile of toys.

Thin-skinned

These types take themselves very seriously, and they can often take offense when none is intended.

Overly modest or boastful

Since they lack self-confidence and are not confident of their strengths, they have a strong tendency to brag. Likewise, they exhibit false modesty. Humility is an absent trait most of the time.

Inconsistent

You would rarely describe these people as being weighty, solid, or substantial. Since they don’t know themselves well, they are not in touch with their genuine emotions; they’re more or less predictable … in a bad way.

They never practice what they preach

They’re likely to advise people to do something they wouldn’t do themselves. After all, non-genuine people know they’re better than others, so it’s in their nature to be self-righteous.

The bottom line

All those seemingly different behaviors have the same thing at their core: self-awareness that’s not consistent with reality. Non-genuine people would see themselves as others would if they were non-objective observers. There’s not a lot of processing, manipulating, or controlling going on between what’s in their head and what people see and hear.

Once you get to know them, non-genuine people never turn out to be more or less consistent with the way they initially hold themselves out to be. What you see is what you get. It’s sad that, in today’s world, such a negative quality is at risk of becoming overwhelming. Not only is it harder to find in others, but it’s also becoming harder to be genuine ourselves.

Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s leadership, teamwork, and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team or leadership workshop?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

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Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics that relate to improving the performance of business. Go to Amazon to obtain a copy of his latest book, Exploring New Age Marketing. It focuses on using the best examples to teach new age marketing … lots to learn. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn

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More leadership material from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Build an Effective Team by Being a Talent Hound

Secrets to Becoming a Remarkably Mindful Leader