The Taboos of Leadership

Taboos and Your Leadership Role

You know that you cannot discuss certain emotion-laden topics in your workplace. However, avoiding touchy issues carries a cost. Leaders need to weigh every factor that affects their organizations. Convention, fads, political correctness and cultural inertia are not strong enough reasons to keep any subject off limits. While the discussion may not be easy, if you handle 10 major flammable topics with openness and sensitivity, you should be able to throw light on your corporate taboos without releasing too much heat. Certainly the past has plenty to teach any company; corporate traditions usually develop because specific behaviors proved beneficial. But times change. What worked then might not work now.

Do not let misplaced reverence choke your opportunities. You will gain legitimacy as an executive if you demonstrate respect for your organization’s heritage and culture, and then do your real job: Act as a leader, not as a curator. Many great business leaders have had to overthrow the past and remake the present to accommodate their visions of the future. They took steps they believed would boost their businesses and improve the lives...