Can You Succeed Under Poor Leadership?

The Question:

I work at an organization that has poor leadership (inconsistent communication, lack of vision, etc). Can I still succeed in my own job under these circumstances? Or is my only hope trying to effect change on the leaders above me? Or should I just leave? -- One Foot Out the Door

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Dear One Foot Out the Door, It sure doesn't sound like you are having a lot of fun.

We're not clear what role you have in your organization, but our experience suggests that if you are right, and the firm is heading downhill, it will be hard for you to emerge untarnished unless your part of the enterprise is discrete and can be independently assessed. Good athletes on poor teams, like the Chicago Cubs Hall of Fame shortstop Ernie Banks, sometimes go on to great individual careers because their own performance can be observed and measured independent of how well the team as a whole is doing.

But this whole line of reasoning is pretty self-absorbed. Lack of leadership does not occur all at once or exist in a vacuum. You seem to be just about ready to throw in the towel, but before you put this experience behind you, here are three tough questions to consider:

(1) What's your piece of the mess? If you are part of the organization, no matter how much you are doing to try to make change, you are part of creating the current reality, so there must be some things you are doing, or not doing, that contribute to the lack of leadership you describe.

(2) What about your own leadership? The opportunities to exercise leadership are independent of position, not the exclusive prerogative of those at the top of the food chain. What smart risks have you taken to get the senior authorities to see what you see? What experiments have you run to try to lead change? For example, have you sought out and then mobilized potential allies?

(3) What have you learned? Why did your diagnostic skills let you down so that you did not see this coming until it was seemingly hopeless? What are your blind spots, vulnerabilities and triggers that you are now aware of so that you will not end up in this same situation somewhere else down the road?

Often seeing bad leadership in action is what motivates us to step forward and become leaders ourselves. If you work through this situation with determination and integrity, it may become a foundational moment in your own development as a leader.

[Send your leadership questions to leadership@washingtonpost.com, or post them in the "comments" section below]