The Superhero is the person who keeps working longer hours in an attempt to continually improve results.
This person thinks if his or her predecessor got pretty good results working 40 hours a week than he or she will produce amazing results by working 80 hours a week. At first people admire this person’s superhuman effort and the results do improve for awhile. The problem sets in when this person thinks that just putting in longer hours is the key to success. It’s not the number of hours that produces better results, but the number of quality hours. The other problem occurs when this person thinks he or she is a superhero who will never tire out. Eventually burnout sets in and this person becomes very ineffective.
Two Questions to Avoid The Superhero Disastrous Leadership Approach
1. How many hours of work, including travel, did you put in last month?
2. How many of those hours do you think were of real quality toward improving your desired business outcomes?