Leadership is a promise, not a costume. I once reported to a man who wore the title but none of the weight. He answered upward, not outward. Every meeting was a mirror angled toward his own survival; every decision, a brushstroke on a portrait meant for the CEO and Board. Ethics were expendable. People were props. The business became a stage set – convincing from a distance, hollow up close.
He perfected the art of plausible deniability. When courage was required, he outsourced it. When accountability knocked, he hid behind process charts and borrowed authority. He called this “alignment.” I called it abdication. A leader’s first duty is stewardship: tell the truth, protect the mission, grow the people. He inverted it – protect himself, bend the mission, spend the people.
Walking away was not a tantrum; it was triage. I refused to co-sign a culture of fear, spin, and selective memory. Some bridges deserve gasoline. Burning that one illuminated everything else: who I am, what I will defend, what I will never excuse. Regret? None. Relief? Immense. My moral compass did not merely point north – it burned hot enough to melt the shackles of complicity.
This is a message to boards and CEOs: your metrics do not immunize you from moral rot. When you reward performance theater, you breed courtiers, not custodians. Ask who pays the bill for your “optics.” It is often the silent, the conscientious, the ones whose names do not appear on slide three.
And to every professional sitting under a leader like this: you are not disloyal for refusing to enable harm. Loyalty without conscience is just inertia with a PR firm. Document the facts. Speak with precision. Refuse the euphemisms. Protect your credibility; you will need it when you walk.
I left with my back straight and my record intact. He kept his title. I kept my soul. In time, titles change hands. Character does not. That is the ledger that always closes on balance.
If leadership means anything, it means courage tethered to principle, not ambition duct-taped to power. I choose the former, every time, whatever the personal cost.
Character matters!
Abdulhussain Tejani
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