Chaos Is Not a Viable Leadership Style

strategy+business, July 19, 2018

by Theodore Kinni

Thirty years ago, the business world had a fling with chaos theory — the idea that although nonlinear systems, such as markets and companies, are inherently unpredictable, some order exists within them nonetheless. Tom Peters told us that chaotic markets harbored valuable business opportunities. Meg Wheatley said that chaotic companies were more adaptive, creative, and resilient than hierarchical companies. But I don’t recall anyone recommending chaos as a leadership style.

To be sure, there are prominent leaders today who adopt chaos as their modus operandi. Take Brandon Truaxe, the CEO of Deciem, a fast-growing Canada-based beauty products company that expects to record US$300 million in sales this year.

Since January 2018, here are a few things he has done. Truaxe fired his social media team and started posting strange messages on Deciem’s Instagram account, including, as described in Elle, “closeup videos of him talking disjointedly about the popular skin-care line’s vision, a river flowing around a mass of garbage, and a photo of a dead sheep, captioned with a promise to never test products on animals.” He fired co-CEO Nicola Kilner, which prompted chief financial officer Stephen Kaplan to quit. (In July, Kilner rejoined the company.) Truaxe also emailed the company’s employees, “I’m done with DECIEM and EVERYTHING. No need to discuss.”




Illustration by Dina Belenko / Alamy

One big benefit of being a chaotic leader is that you get a lot of attention. In this social media–driven, attention-addled, 24/7 world, it could be that the quantity of attention matters more than its content. Indeed, even as media and customer reactions to Truaxe’s actions turned negative, the company’s products continued selling briskly. “All they’re (his actions) doing is creating more sales for me,” Truaxe told WWD.

Well, maybe. But before you adopt a chaotic leadership style for its Barnum-like marketing effects, you probably should pause to consider what it does to the people and organizations that you are charged with leading. Chaotic leaders are like Loki, the trickster of Norse mythology, who sows the seeds of confusion and discord...read the rest here.