Misdirected Drive: When the Engine Runs for the Wrong Destination
Leaders with high drive often get promoted because their energy gets them noticed—but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re driving in the right direction. This article explores how drive, when untethered from prosocial values or feedback mechanisms, can veer into ethical challenges, short-termism, and defensive, ego-driven leadership.
The Shadow Side of Drive
I define misdirected drive as when a leader demonstrates high, proactive energy that is perceived as “leader-like,” but their aims are misaligned with what society and organizations truly need— they show up with ego, status, dominance, or control.
I say “perceived” because the traits we often associate with strong leaders don’t always result in effective leadership. This is the classic distinction between leadership emergence and leadership effectiveness. We may be falling for the trap of charisma—charm that masks ineffectiveness or, at its worst, exploitative energy.
The best leaders don’t rely on charisma alone. They know what to do when they don’t know what to do. They’re learning agile—but that’s a post for another day.
When Leaders Get Defensive
There are many reasons why leaders become defensive. It’s often a proxy for emotional maturity—or the lack of it. That doesn’t mean a leader is permanently stuck in that state, but they have some developmental work to do. (I prefer the term “emotional maturity” to “emotional intelligence,” because maturity is something that can grow over time, while intelligence can feel fixed.)
A common byproduct is that leaders conflate pace with progress. One pattern I see in organizations is a tendency to mistake activity for outcomes. Leaders managing up often look busy—but did the flurry of activity lead to meaningful results?
Leaders get defensive for a host of reasons. One is because when a work product is criticized, it feels like their identity is under attack. For many, work is more than work — and that’s okay. But for high-drive leaders, identity often fuses with output—and that’s the upside of drive. It’s what moves the world.
Still, charisma may have shielded them from real feedback for too long. You’ve likely heard of “failing up” or the Peter Principle—being promoted to one’s level of incompetence. That’s a key fault line in the emergence vs. effectiveness debate. Charisma can mask true ability, and when that mask is pierced, defensiveness follows.
The Real Cost of Misdirection
When leaders channel drive without direction, it can result in unethical decision-making, driven by unchecked urgency.
Take Jeffrey Skilling at Enron or Adam Neumann at WeWork. Neumann’s drive became disconnected from reality—his identity was tied so tightly to his vision that he resisted feedback from anyone outside his inner circle. Delusion crept in. In both cases, charisma was used as a shield, not a tool for learning.
Culturally, we also see how short-term wins, when paired with charisma, can erode long-term trust. Carlos Ghosn, once celebrated for turning around Nissan, is a striking example. He delivered quick profitability, but partners came to see him as autocratic. Eventually, resentment grew—and he was arrested in Japan for financial misconduct. What began as charismatic drive turned into institutional rupture.
Recalibrating the Engine
It’s essential that leaders periodically ask:
“What outcomes am I really driving toward?”
“What’s the quality of the wake I leave behind?”
I once coached a leader who said he'd received feedback that he “leaves bodies in his wake.” His pursuit of achievement was costing him relationships and trust. However, he learneed a better way. He learned to bring people along on the journey—not step over them.
Receiving feedback without defensiveness is one of the most powerful tools a leader can cultivate. Seeing feedback as a gift (as cliche as it sounds), not a threat to ego, is at the heart of emotional maturity—and a core requirement for true leadership effectiveness.
Key References
Ashford, S. J., & Tsui, A. S. (1991). Self-regulation for managerial effectiveness: The role of active feedback seeking. Academy of Management Journal, 34(2), 251–280.
Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. W. (2002). Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 765–780.
Pfeffer, J. (2018). Dying for a paycheck: How modern management harms employee health and company performance—and what we can do about it.
Reb, J. (2020). Carlos Ghosn: The rise and fall of an automobile legend (B). Singapore Management University, Case Collection.
Rosenthal, S. A., & Pittinsky, T. L. (2006). Narcissistic leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(6), 617–633.