Harry recently shared his thoughts with Kellogg Insight on what led to Liz Truss’s failure as the former Prime Minister of Great Britain:

Anyone stepping into a new leadership role is likely dreaming of early successes. You walk in, make some exciting changes, improve the way the organization operates, and immediately earn the trust and respect of your team.

But, of course, it’s almost never that easy. There’s going to be a learning curve, perhaps a steep one. Challenges may look very different on the inside than they did from the outside. And any number of factors, both within and outside your control, can trip you up at the start of your tenure.

For a particularly egregious example of a leader failing right from the start, look to Liz Truss, who resigned as prime minister of Great Britain amid a massive economic crisis of her own making only 44 days into office.

Of course, her government’s unfunded tax plan was her primary undoing, spooking the markets and setting off a chain reaction of economic blows from which she never recovered. But according to Harry Kraemer, former CEO of Baxter International and a clinical professor of management and organizations at Kellogg, Truss also failed on another level: as a leader.

In Kraemer’s view, there are four dimensions to values-based leadership—self-reflection, a balanced perspective, true self-confidence, and genuine humility. He sees Truss failing as a leader along each of these dimensions and believes other leaders can learn from her mistakes.

In general, he encourages leaders to listen to those around them and to seek to understand differing perspectives. Having that knowledge and perspective will help you avoid making massive missteps out of the starting gate. Which is the opposite of what Truss did.

Read the full article here.