How NOT to Lead

Step Aside, Mediocre Leaders: Learn What NOT To Do!

Ditch the fluff and sugarcoating and learn how to lead the way your people deserve. In How NOT To Lead, Dr. Chase Cunningham, a seasoned cybersecurity heavyweight and Retired Navy Chief, doesn't give you a textbook guide on leadership — he delivers a no-holds-barred, gloves-off masterclass on the lethal mistakes that'll tank your leadership game and ultimately sink your reputation and even your company's future.

Want the brutal truth? This book slaps you with some cold, hard realities:

• What happens when you fall off your ego and hit your IQ on the way down as a leader, and why you need to do that.
• The absolute idiocy of "Mushroom Farming": keeping your team in the dark, feeding them crap, and expecting gourmet results.
• A nowhere-to-hide deep dive into "Dumpster Chickens" leadership: using destructive tactics that rip apart team spirit and obliterate business success.
• The triple threat: the three non-negotiable currencies every leader MUST have. Miss one, and you're doomed.
• Eye-opening case studies — ripped from headlines and history books — that throw a spotlight on the real-world disasters of crappy leadership.

Aimed squarely at managers, executives, and anyone brave enough to lead, How NOT To Lead is your audacious guide through the minefield of leadership pitfalls. If you've got the intestinal fortitude to read this book, then drop what you are doing and hitch up your britches for some tough love.

Don't let mediocrity be your legacy, do better. Your employees deserve it and so do you!

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 The Value of Knowing What NOT to Do 1

Chapter 2 The Only Currencies That Matter as a Leader 19

Time 19

Trust 25

Respect 33

The Most Valuable Currency 42

Chapter 3 You Deserve What You Tolerate 45

Chapter 4 Flat Organization, Flat Fail 61

Chapter 5 Don’t Be a Dumpster Chicken 69

Chapter 6 Go Slow to Be Fast 77

Chapter 7 Beware the Brilliant Jerk. 85

Chapter 8 Money, the Root of All Evil (But It May Yield the Fruit of Success) 93

Chapter 9 Don’t Be a Mushroom Farmer 105

Chapter 10 Choose Your Horse Wisely. 117

Chapter 11 Don’t Lose Perspective, and Never Let Your Ego (Or Title) Write Checks Your Ass Can’t Cash 129

Chapter 12 Get Past the Fatal Funnel 141

Chapter 13 Don’t Chase Unicorns 151

Chapter 14 Microscope, Telescope, or Mirror? 165

Chapter 15 Proof Is in the Pudding 175

References 185

Acknowledgments 191

About the Author 193

Index 195

CHASE CUNNINGHAM, known in the cybersecurity industry as “DrZeroTrust,” has extensive expertise in every aspect of enterprise security. He is a former Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester, where he tracked and covered all aspects of enterprise security, including Zero Trust trends, technologies, and frameworks.

In How NOT to Lead: Lessons Every Manager Can Learn from Dumpster Chickens, Mushroom Farmers, and Other Office Offenders, renowned cybersecurity practitioner and executive Dr. Chase Cunningham revolutionizes the traditional approach to leadership books by showing exactly what you need to avoid doing so you can guide others effectively and build your leadership skills faster and smarter. Dr. Cunningham discusses specific and actionable behaviors and habits that dramatically reduce your performance as a leader, demonstrating how to avoid these common pitfalls and mistakes.

The book explains how to improve your planning, strategy, and execution as you confidently progress in your leadership abilities. You’ll find extensive discussions of the biggest mistakes that leaders make when organizing and conducting business meetings and techniques for dealing with “brilliant jerks”—employees and team members with extraordinary capabilities and extraordinarily toxic personalities. You’ll also discover how leaders can fall into the trap of “Mushroom Farming” by keeping employees and stakeholders in the dark, leaving them to toil and grow as “mushrooms.”

How NOT to Lead outlines corrosive leadership tactics that degrade business efficacy and showcases in-depth case studies of well-known organizations that highlight the real-world application of the concepts discussed in the book. It includes descriptions of a variety of failed-leader archetypes, including the Dumpster Chicken, the Unicorn Chaser, and the Cat Herder.

Perfect for managers, executives, directors, and other business leaders, How NOT to Lead is the incisive, hands-on roadmap you’ll need to dodge the innumerable obstacles and wrong turns that populate the leadership landscape. It’s also ideal for entrepreneurs, founders, team leaders, business students, and aspiring leaders interested in developing their leadership capabilities to their fullest.

Discover the behaviors and habits you need to avoid to become the best leader you can be

How NOT to Lead: Lessons Every Manager Can Learn from Dumpster Chickens, Mushroom Farmers, and Other Office Offenders is a timely and lively discussion of the mistakes and missteps that many leaders make as they do their best to guide their teams to success and achievement. Cybersecurity veteran and author Dr. Chase Cunningham walks you through a variety of failed-leader archetypes—including the Dumpster Chicken, the Mushroom Farmer, the Unicorn Chaser, and the Cat Herder—as well as timeless lessons and in-depth case studies that highlight the real-world application of the concepts discussed in the book.

You’ll learn to improve your planning, strategy, and execution by dodging the pitfalls that have tripped up so many leaders before you. You’ll get actionable habits and behaviors and specific solutions to common, hard-to-solve problems faced by leaders in every industry and every country.

An ideal resource with lessons you can implement immediately to develop your leadership skills faster and smarter, How NOT to Lead will earn a place on the desks of managers, executives, directors, and other business leaders, as well as entrepreneurs, founders, team leaders, human resources executives, and anyone else with an interest in fulfilling their leadership potential.