Does The Leadership Information You Get Have ANY Value At All?

Most of what you Consume about Leadership has NO Value.

I'm not saying this to attack the many wonderful people in the Industry.

It's more a fact about the Systems around "Leadership Development" that we currently have.

See, Leadership Development is part of the Industrial Complex.

What is that?

From Wikipedia:

“The industrial complex is a socioeconomic concept wherein businesses become entwined in social or political systems or institutions, creating or bolstering a profit economy from these systems. Such a complex is said to pursue its own financial interests regardless of, and often at the expense of, the best interests of society and individuals. Businesses within an industrial complex may have been created to advance a social or political goal, but mostly profit when the goal is not reached. The industrial complex may profit financially from maintaining socially detrimental or inefficient systems.”

I know that is a huge block of text, so let me Simplify it for you...

The Leadership Development Industry has been estimated to be worth $350 Billion.

Who wins?

If you think it is the people who get Trained to be Leaders, you'd be wrong.

Leadership Development Completely Fails 80% of the time.

Completely Fails.

The rest of the time it has "Limited Success".

Who wins?

The "Industry" wins, but the Clients (The "Leaders") don't.

When Leaders Fail to become better, they seek out "more" Leadership Development, only to get more Failed Results.

The Industry continues to win and grow, but the Leaders do not.

This brings us to the last part of the definition provided, "The industrial complex may profit financially from maintaining socially detrimental and inefficient systems."

Leadership Development thrives by keeping the Status Quo of Failed Leadership.

Again, I am not blaming good-hearted individuals within the Industry, it's a Problem with the Design of the Industry itself.

It's why years ago I decided to stop doing Leadership Development, I didn't want to contribute to this Very Apparent Problem.

We also know that this is True because when we look at the largest Problems that Leaders have faced, the Statistics have only gotten Worse.

What is the Largest Current Problem of Leaders?

Burnout.

How has fixing that been going?

Short answer - It hasn't been going.

Longer answer -

Burnout has been continually getting Worse over the years, to the point today where 80% of Employees are in some form of Burnout, with more close behind.

If this problem were to be Fixed, Leaders would open up the possibility to Flow States, Innovation, Creative Problem Solving, Group Cohesion, Increases in Productivity and Emotional Intelligence, and more.

But Leaders continually find themselves prevented from attaining these Goals.

If you want to see it further, let's look at any Leadership Material you read.

Let's say that You, as a high-level Leader, make $1 Million per year for your work.

Estimated higher than the average CEO, but you're worth more than "average".

(If you're making more, then multiply the following numbers to match).

This means that each minute You spend on something costs the Organization $8.69 in total.

I like even numbers, so let's round that to $10 per minute.

However, you don't want to "just" get the same amount of money back, you want an ROI.

The generally accepted "expected" ROI for Employees is 10x of their salary.

That means that you, as a Leader, should expect an ROI of $100 per minute that you spend on anything.

If you read an online article, an "ideal length" would be 7 minutes of reading, but we'll round that to 10 minutes for ease.

This means each Article you read should give you an estimated $1,000 Idea.

How often do you find a $1,000 Article ANYWHERE on the Internet?

I know when it comes to Leadership Development, it is nearly Never.

I used to be a part of the Forbes Coach's Council, filled with Leadership Coaches.

I can also tell you that most of the "common" Leadership Advice I read was NOT worth the $7.00 Forbes Membership you must spend to regularly read them.

Easily 95% of those "common" pieces of Leadership Advice made it to Publish.

It is EXTREMELY common to find Ideas that literally have $0 Value for Leaders ALL over the Internet.

What makes this worse is that we will soon see AI become a dominant force in Leadership Development.

AI by design finds what is most available and spits more of that out while eliminating the "outliers".

In this case, this means AI will find ALL the Valueless Leadership Content, and make it more Prevalent.

As I once said...

"Leadership Development is an Echo Chamber of Failure."

AI will simply Amplify that Useless Leadership Content until we can't see anything else.

Every Minute you spend on this type of Content as a Leader will only be wasting your time.

If you don't want your time wasted, you should look for Original Ideas (especially those not written by AI) that provide Ideas on how to Solve Organizations BIGGEST Problems.

For Instance - Burnout is Estimated to be a $1 Trillion Problem for Organizations.

I actually believe that is HIGHLY Underestimated because most people have no understanding of the interplay between Burnout and Flow States.

Could you Imagine how much Value you would gain from Fixing that Problem?

Flow States can Improve Productivity by 5X (which was Estimated BEFORE Burnout was widespread, so tests today would likely indicate Significantly higher Improvements).

Let's say that you have a Team of 10 Employees who are all in Burnout.

You're not losing money at the moment, and they miraculously are making that 10x Return that is Expected (unlikely in Reality, but you'll see where I'm going).

This would mean that each Employee is generating about $600k per year (Average Employee Salary of $60k).

However, now with more Valuable knowledge, You figure out how to get them out of Burnout and into consistent Flow States.

This means that You should be getting closer to $2.4 Million more from each Employee, or the Team should generate $24 Million more per year.

That also does not include the Multiplier Effect of Group Flow.

What makes this far more interesting is that you could track how close you are to attaining this Goal through the Flow-To-Strain Ratio.

The higher that Ratio, the closer You will get to that Goal.

The lower that Ratio, the Less likely you will even get the 10x "healthy" Return from Employees' Salaries.

This is why I so often talk about Designing a Regenerative Legacy.

If you want Results as a Leader, you cannot Waste time in the Industrial Complex.

You MUST get Different types of Ideas that have EXTREME Value.