Seems that leaders everywhere are drowning in egotism; many are going down for the third time and haven’t even noticed. So I thought that I would dedicate today’s Quotable Quotes to egotism—long may it reign rot.

Egotism has to be at the root of the old saying,“He has lulled himself into a false sense of competence.”

Or, as Dan Post said, “Egotism is the glue with which you get stuck in yourself”

Colin Powell warned about a condition I call “ego merge” (I’ll write more about it Tuesday) when he said, “Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.” Obviously that doesn’t happen to the Fulds and Thains of the world.

Then, again, they may have learned the truth of Martin Dansky comment, “If you’ve chosen egocentricity for your career path than you’ve chosen to live with the illusion that your surroundings will serve you continuously.”

Have you ever considered that egotism is a kind of anesthesia? No? Bellamy Brooks and Frank Leahy both came to the same conclusion.

Brooks said, “Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool”

But Leahy was more direct, “Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”

And since we’re on the subject, join me next Sunday for a quotable look at egotism’s co-joined twin, arrogance.

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For a long time now I’ve believed that the L word in all its forms has been abused and corrupted and I’ve haven’t been shy about saying so. Further, I hate words that are defined using variations of themselves. When that happens there is nothing concrete against which to check the meaning of the word or its usage.

I’m also not a lover of people who rant and whine about what’s wrong, but offer no ideas to fix the problem/situation.

So it’s time to start working on solutions.

Perhaps a new acronym would jump-start changing the career slant of ‘leader’.

That way we can offer leadership skills to all, so that they can indeed lead whenever it’s appropriate to the situation—leaders in the instance—instead of anointing a chosen few.

How about POF (person-out-front) to refer to someone at the front of the organization.

Or perhaps it would be better to use upper and lower case for the person in front who may or may not be a Leader, but is a leader.

For example, Richard Fuld is a leader, whereas Lou Gerstner is a Leader.

Of course, that may be worse, since people in those roles already consider themselves ‘special’ and might start thinking of the likeness between god and God.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten, but I’m hoping that y’all, AKA, my brilliant readers, will add your ideas and suggestions.

Together we can make a difference.

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What a difference a day—or in this case a couple of years—makes.Here are quotes by and about four of the leaders whose vision helped lead us to our present situation. These are the same guys lauded by universities, the media, leadership pundits and themselves just short time ago.

“Bad behavior is aberrational…never is a big word…the chances of [the company] getting into trouble again are virtually nil.”— Chuck Prince Citigroup Dec. 16, 2005 at the annual Citigroup Investor Day,

“We’re sticking with [Angelo] Mozilo because he has built a top-notch organization with strong risk controls that could emerge even stronger from the current subprime meltdown.” Barron’s, April 18, 2007

“The vision is to hire terrific people who will be the next generation of leaders and the people who will take this firm to the next level.” Richard Fuld, Knowledge@Wharton, January 10, 2007 (link includes his five qualities for leadership)

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