In my quarter-century of international experience with my former organization, I have been privileged to interact with countless executives hailing from every corner of the globe. It is with deep concern and regret that I have noticed a trend, of course with exceptions, suggesting that many of these leaders are choosing blissful ignorance over confronting the reality of their shortcomings.

To put it more boldly, many leaders today appear to wear blinkers, systematically choosing to ignore aspects that fall outside their areas of proficiency or personal interest. An alarming number of these leaders, while boasting impressive MBAs, are conspicuously deficient in fundamental areas like technical knowledge, delivery capability, and domain expertise. For example, an Accountant who was put in charge of a Technology division, only to have that division completely ejected from the parent company due to poor performance. The efforts of these leaders to get to the root of issues often resemble a journey into a dark forest without a compass, where the only path is the one marked by their equally lost management teams.

Adding fuel to this blazing fire of incompetence, the majority of management, as well as their subordinates, find themselves in a state of confusion, scrambling for a foothold in this maze of ignorance. And unfortunately, in this chaotic environment, the temptation to resort to unethical practices becomes irresistible. We see unsavoury tactics such as the manipulation of service level agreements, the exclusion of negative data from reports and measurements, and the use of overly complex, statistical numbers that serves nothing but to baffle executives.

These practices manifest themselves in flashy PowerPoint slides, decorative dashboards that, while light on substance, are heavy on style. The C-suite, unbeknownst to the underlying chaos, gladly takes these palatable presentations and dashboards as gospel and runs with them. And what happens when the inevitable crisis hits? When clients are on the brink of contract termination, the executives scramble in panic, desperately trying to make sense of the mess and mend the damage, that was largely of their own making.

So, I ask, when will we confront this systemic malaise? When will we, as leaders, take off our blinkers and face the realities of our shortcomings head-on, rather than waiting for the grim reaper of contract termination to rattle his scythe? The time to act is now. The future of our industry depends on it.

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