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Senior Correspondent

Brain power, skills and success beckon leaders to believe they are better than others when they aren’t. The most repulsive lie leaders believe about themselves is the long-nose-lie, “I’m better than.”

Everyone sees the long nose you look down. The insecure feel inferior around your long nose while climbers grovel for its approval. In either case, people can’t take their eyes off it’s disgusting length.

Long nose leaders:

  1. Enjoy flattery.
  2. Prefer control to empowerment
  3. Treat employees like things.
  4. Never eat in the cafeteria.
  5. Don’t know employee names.
  6. View people as disruptions.
  7. Believe fear and distance motivates.

How noses grow:

Confusion between performance and being human grows long noses. One success following another landed you in leadership. Sadly, success shrunk your brain and grew your nose. Your tiny head became filled with small thinking exaggerating your huge proboscis. You forgot that everyone in the world is essentially the same. We all want to:

  1. Feel respect.
  2. Love and be loved.
  3. Engage in meaningful work.
  4. Control our environments.
  5. Feel secure.

You may have performed better than others in your context but behind your shrinking head and growing nose, you developed amnesia. Your long nose indicates you forgot your own humanity. Your long nose reflects a barrier that obscures universal human need and feeds emptiness.

Led by long noses:

Once a nose gets long it’s hard to shrink it. But, big heads make long noses look small. Grow your brain by changing your thinking. The simple solution to the long-nose-lie is giving people exactly what you want them to give you. For example, give the respect you demand for yourself to others. Surprisingly, your long nose may point the way.

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How do leaders overtly or subtly let others know they believe they are better than others?

What needs do long noses have that reflect universal human need?

Have you seen someone escape the long-nose-lie, once they believed it?

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