What is common between Hollywood movies like The Social Network, Pirates of Silicon Valley, and The Wolf of Wall Street? A CEO’s entrepreneurial journey is surrounded by a storm of challenges, and how might leadership take a darker edge? The Social Network featured Mark Zuckerberg’s story of building Facebook and reflecting on his dark side of obsession, anger, and resilience in the path of becoming a CEO. Initially, he created Facebook for Harvard students, where The Winklevoss brothers accused him of stealing their idea. Then, we have Pirates of Silicon Valley, demonstrating the rivalry between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Finally, the iconic plot of Wolf of the Street reveals the rise and fall of an entrepreneur and its dark ground reality of manipulations. These characters reveal that the burden of managing position’s power and leadership can sometimes reveal a darker side of CEOs at the decision table due to the pressure to handle public image and be extra cautious about actions. Bad leaders might go off-limits and ruin their years of dedication in a short while due to toxic traits like arrogance, lack of empathy, impatience, and not being open to constructive criticism. Altogether, these frame the darker side of leadership that swiftly develops within CEOs if they miss out on drawing lines and don’t avoid the loop of chasing success.
Elon Musk, known for his innovation at SpaceX, has faced heavy criticism for rebranding Twitter to “X.” The rebrand coincided with massive employee turnover, exploitative policies, toxic leadership, and long working hours under the threat of termination. Critics say Musk’s poor business decisions have compromised the integrity and safety of the platform. His leadership style has been widely condemned, with many suggesting that his arrogance and ego damage Twitter’s credibility and global reputation. Despite his success with SpaceX, Musk’s approach at Twitter has undermined his status as CEO.
As CEOs represent their brand and years of legacy, they unboundedly stand in the position to attract criticism and hatred by climbing onto the ladder of success. Leadership has been a long journey where everyone fails and takes lessons to lead the future pathways. Besides Twitter’s mishandling, Elon Musk is undoubtedly a great example of a visionary with the talent to revolutionise the world with great innovations.
CEOs who follow empathetic leadership can lead any organisation with the right strategy and sense of involvement. Empathy means genuinely putting yourself in the shoes of the people you lead, making the decision-making process far more influential. Empathetic leaders care more about their team members as people and take a holistic approach to their relationships with employees. Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Sons, has worked on the vision of building the cheapest car in India – the Tata Nano; however, the project failed miserably due to clumsy marketing and controversies. Still, none of the Indians forgot his name as the strongest CEO in India because of his empathetic leadership, which earned him respect and admiration worldwide.
CEOs who fail to seek guidance and assistance might steer their companies with bad decisions. Many instances where CEO decisions showcase unjust practices, like recently, mass layoffs in the IT industry, garner constructive criticism; Google laid off the entire Python team due to the advent of AI technology. All these mismanagement cases put CEOs in a questionable spot for their ineffective leadership. Also, Indian startups have come into the limelight due to allegations of toxic work culture; for instance, employees of the Bengaluru-based company have recounted to Bloomberg about Ola founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal’s ruthless and abrasive behaviour at work, which has not only alienated staff but also upset board members.
Any CEO is bound to reflect the traits of a motivator, supporter, communicator, and integrator to lead their organisation. They can’t be perfect in all aspects, but traits of neglectful management, extreme micromanagement, indecisiveness, and self-centred decisions might decay companies’ growth and development on a larger scale. As said, every mistake can be corrected with the right approach; instead of chasing perfection, CEOs might seek consultation to ensure the best leadership and significant development for their organisation.
