The SHOCKING DOWNFALL of the Incongruent Leader
10 Oct 2023 · 1 min
Solo podcast episode by James Laughlin (Lead On Purpose). The host opens with promotions (offers a free copy of his book Habits of High Performers and invites listeners to a 2026 goal-setting workshop), briefly introduces his background as a former seven-time world champion musician and executive coach, then tells an anecdote about the "shocking downfall of an incongruent leader" — a political party leader in the southern hemisphere whose private abusive behaviour contradicted their public messaging and led to resignation. The episode's main lesson: leadership integrity and congruency matter; abusive, alpha-style leadership is unsustainable. Episode closes with calls-to-action to subscribe, rate, and listen to other interviews.
Chapters
I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers.
If you come and join the 2026.
Goal setting workshop, I will ship you.
One of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine.
If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.
I want to tell you about the shocking downfall of an incongruent leader. You know what? Leadership integrity really matters. It matters now more than ever. We need leaders to be congruent. Look, there was a leader of a national party, a political party in the southern hemisphere, and this leader was, you know, wanted to obviously be running the country, but had major issues with congruency. So on field, when the cameras were on and on, on chat shows, was saying, you know, as people of the nation, we should be doing this and this is how we should treat each other, in equality and fairness and kindness, all these things, encouraging people to do that. But behind the scenes was treating their staff like absolute crap. That's right. Behind the scenes, being mean, being ruthless, being rude, being blunt, being unkind, and not seeing how the incongruency behind the scenes was really setting themselves up for disaster. And guess what happened? One of the staff members reported this behavior, this abuse. And let's face it, there is no room in our day and age of leadership for abusive leaders. It's just there's no room for that alpha aggressive type of leadership. It's not going to pass. It's not going to work. Have you ever seen it work really well? Maybe in the short term you'll see some results, but long term it's not going to work. I was interviewing Barack Obama's former senior advisor and he said, James, there's one thing I want you to remember and that is this. No one, I mean no one wants to work for a Butthole. I laughed when he said that. But it's so right. Would you want to work for someone that treated you terribly? Would you want to work for someone that told you to do one thing, but then they did a totally different thing? I had a totally different set of standards. I'm guessing not. My challenge is to you. Because you're watching this because you are a leader. You're watching this because you want to develop your leadership. What are you doing that's congruent with what you tell others to do? And what are you doing that's not congruent? Because we all do things that are incongruent from time to time. Where are they showing up for you? Look, to me, it's critically important. This leader I was telling you about a moment ago ended up having to resign, having to leave their post as a leader because it publicly came out and there were recordings of him slamming people in his organization and there's just no room for that. And I'm sure he looks back with regret. I'm pretty positive he'll look back and go, wow, I wish I didn't do that. And that's great that as leaders we can learn. But imagine if we can learn before we make that mistake. And how do we learn? We learn from other people and what they do. How do I do that? I often interview great people, whether they've run countries or companies. And I'd love you to check out some of those incredible interviews on the show. So if you're here on YouTube, hit subscribe go and check out some of the other amazing interviews with the guests that I've had on in recent months and years. And if you're on our audio platforms, I hope you're enjoying it. Please continue to share this show with a friend. But for now, please get out there and lead your life purpose.
Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders, it's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.
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