What is a Fake Leader (FL)? It is someone disguised as a person in a leadership position who focuses on self and not the organization or ultimate good of people. It’s someone caught in minutia and is incapable of seeing the big picture, someone who misses the needed day-to-day facts to support growth and well being of people and the organization. A person in a leadership position, who renders opinions without substance, does not inspire followers to achieve a vision, nor inspire followers to want to work together as a team. Fake Leaders talk a good game and produce very little. They are focused on self, money, and self-aggrandizement. They confuse a vision of hope with threatening statements and forecast a better place for followers through half-truths and retracted statements, with promises that we will be told the rest of the story in a few days.

1. 5 Tips for Identifying Fake Leaders
By Rex Gatto Ph.D., BCC
What is a Fake Leader (FL)? It is someone
disguised as a person in a leadership position who
focuses on self and not the organization or ultimate
good of people. It’s someone caught in minutia and
is incapable of seeing the big picture, someone who
misses the needed day-to-day facts to support
growth and well being of people and the
organization. A person in a leadership position, who
renders opinions without substance, does not inspire
followers to achieve a vision, nor inspire followers to
want to work together as a team. Fake Leaders talk
a good game and produce very little. They are
focused on self, money, and self-aggrandizement.
They confuse a vision of hope with threatening
statements and forecast a better place for followers
through half-truths and retracted statements, with
promises that we will be told the rest of the story in a
few days.
Fake Leaders can speak in sound bites motivating
the audience to await outcomes that will never occur.
People mistakenly think the Fake Leaders are
people of conscientiousness but slowly they reveal
their hubris only wanting self-satisfaction and

2. pleasure. Civility a formal politeness that leaders
may demonstrate as role models for social
convention is not part of the Fake Leaders tool box.
Leadership, manifests through the actions of a
person on any level. Effective leaders help us to
have clarity of the future, and support us in
achieving that future. They are motivators who help
us get through the mundane, and pain of the present
and they support followers in wanting to work
together to achieve a better future. More importantly
true authentic leaders inspire us collectively to want
to work together and help each other to achieve a
brighter future and new places of human exploration.
The following 5 Tips for Identifying Fake Leaders
(FLs) are based on my many years of observation in
my work in national and international corporations
and, as of late, leaders on the national level. As you
read the 5 Tips, sit back and hear the leaders talking
with you about how they lead and their fake rhetoric.
Use the 5 Tips as a Scorecard and compare people
in leadership positions against the Fake Leaders
and then with the Successful and Authentic Leaders.
Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones who are led
by a Successful and Authentic Leader!

4. Tip #1There are no Facts or Truth
Tell people what they want to hear without any
knowledge of facts. Tell them anything so they
believe in a great tomorrow that will never come. Tell
them so they cheer for you in the belief you will take
them to a better place or offer suggestions of well
being. Over the centuries there have been leaders
who were able to rally people to take action that was
not in their best interests but they took the action
because the Fake Leaders, charlatans, disguised
themselves as caring human beings with an ability to
achieve all that they promised. I will give you want
you want by telling you about it. I will create the
proverbial carrot and stick routine without ever
producing results. Promising anything without any
tangle results produces nothing but useless
aspiration of dreams that were never real. Hope is a
tangible reality with direction while a daydream is
wasted words. Hope becomes a reality through the
support of a clear vision, evidence, and actions of
both the leaders and followers to fulfill the promise of
Hope. Facts are concrete action points that can fulfill
the hope people want and need. What a terrible
thing it is to lose hope based on empty, long winded,
and unfounded promises from Fake Leaders.

5. Tip #2 Impulsivity
Impulsivity appeals to the raw instinct because
people want to believe in the Fake Leader’s
capabilities to achieve greatness. Impulsivity is
based on the spontaneous thoughts of any moment
usually lacks reason and truth. The Fake Leader
makes irreverent comments and states unfounded
truths that deflect from self on to an identified person
projecting evil. That person then, becomes the patsy,
the cause of all ills. These Fake Leaders revert to
the language of the street so that they can be
perceived as common folk representing us and
addressing our anger and mitigating our frustrations.
The followers want to believe these Fake Leaders
can bring about change but that will never occur.
FLs are great at portraying themselves as
representing the common folk when in essence they
only are satisfying their own selfish needs of power
given to them through the acceptanceof the
common folk who have swallowed the foul stench of
half-truths covered in chocolate. Impulsivity
becomes a mantle to motivate those in such need of
change that they believe without rational thought, no
premeditation of a plan, no calm, no deliberate
consideration, just a resulting chaos. Impulsivity also
is the enemy of attention-focused achievement and
its correlate, attention to detail, accurate historical
perspective and plan development. The impulsive

6. statements have no fortitude, no timetable for
implementation and no basis in fact.
Tip #3 Stability
Stability is the key to leaders who create the steady
course of change and direction. There have been
many examples of leaders who create stability from
chaos. FLs create more chaos from the chaotic
situation of the present. Fake Leaders thrive on
chaos and call it organized and clarity of leadership
knowing that it does not represent nor fulfill what
was or will be expected. Fake Leaders create such
unstable environments that the second tier of
leaders realizing they have been placed in untenable
situations find themselves having to chose between
failure or leaving, vote with their feet and leave. Or
the Fake Leader, who creates the untenable and
chaotic environment, relieves the second tier leaders
of their duties and blames them for the unorganized
mess. This is a mere distraction from the truth that
the narcissistic Fake Leader justifies by ridiculing
and dismissing the now emotionally depleted fallen
second tier leader.

7. Tip#4 Exaggerated Results
Fake Leaders love to exaggerate their own personal
successes. They will tell followers how good they are,
how they have created success and how they single
handedly have accomplished so much. They take
the successes and accomplishments from others
and exploit their fake success. They forget that the
only reason they are successful is because of others.
While exaggerating success, they also act tough
even though they have never placed themselves in a
given difficult situation. They are politically savvy
and capable of telling a story of accomplishments
never achieved. FLs ridicule and create simplistic
mantras upon which they can be known. The
problem is the mantras are based on their half-truths
without foundation to solicit support from the naïve
person who wants to believe s/he can do what they
said they could do. By the time the Fake Leader is
found out it is too late: they are entrenched in their
cocoon of lies and deceit continuing to attack others
as fast as they can. In today’s technically driven
workplace, it is possible to continue to spew lies and
half-truths hastily bypassing the hard work of
negotiating, following through and measuring
successes and greatness. But technology will be the
verifier to show their half-truths as fake truths. FLs
don’t have to measure success because they create
innuendo, and quickly move from topic-to-topic and

8. person-to-person with continual distraction from
staying the course of action and success. FLs never
demonstrate the ability to work down in the trenches
that eventually cause success. Because they have
to stay ahead of the questioning body of followers
the FLs continue to attack past leaders as the
reason for today’s failures even when it is clear too
much time has elapse and past leaders are no
longer the logical reason for failure.
Tip #5 Applying Successes from Unrelated
Situations. Applying successes from unrelated
situations is not a reason to expect future success. A
man who is an effective stockbroker may not be an
effective speechwriter or architect. Those are
different professions. A Fake Leader who runs an
organization as a sole proprietor may not be able to
transition to a charismatic leader who is an
influencer and caring person. An ogre may have a
tough time getting other leaders to follow and only
stop when threats impose the greater risk than
taking unfounded action. What causes leaders to be
successful? How should we measure success? The
cause of success is not the ability to tell me I am
going to be successful rather it is outcome based.
Success factors are important milestones for all to
follow and utilize in understanding if a leader is a
success or failure. Another measure of effective

9. leadership is to ask followers if they want to follow
this leader? If a follower’s life depended on it would
they follow the Fake Leader into battle knowing their
life and the lives of family members depended on it.
The FL will tell you it will be great, it will be the best,
but what past successes can they give as examples.
Usually NONE!
The 5 Fake Leader traits and characteristics can
allow you to identify Fake Leaders. Fake Leadership
is all about the leader taking advantage through half-
truths, schmoozing, emotional arrogance, and
intimidation.
Withall of the leadership training and the billions of
dollars that go into that training, why do we still have
people in leadership positions that exhibit Fake
Leadership? With the changing emotional times
people are frustrated and have no place to turn so
the spewing charlatan (Fake Leaders) pontificate
half-truths find an opening in their disenchantment
and validate the discontent with distortions and
fabrications. Through out history there have been
Fake Leaders who have decimated the resources of
human kind until good people rise up against them.
In contrast, what does an Authentic Leader do?

10. Authentic Leaders – #1: Analyze the Situation
Authentic Leaders are reliable, trustworthy, realistic
and accurate. Authentic Leaders observe others
who are role models and acquire the skills needed to
be a leader. Authentic Leaders start by examining
the whole picture not bits and pieces of a situation.
Fake Leaders start by taking action before knowing
the whole picture, emotionally responding with bits
and pieces to address a situation (band aides).
Authentic Leaders take the time needed to
understand and know the situation and
consequences for taking action. Authentic Leaders
create an awareness of the situation and what
actions are needed to create calm, fix, resolve, and
or address what has occurred. Reflecting on
outcomes Authentic Leader understand
consequences of leadership actions and next step
solutions. Authentic Leaders understand their own
emotions, abilities and biases in leading and are
able to overcome quick ineffective actions.
Authentic Leaders – #2: Set A Tone
Authentic Leaders realize they set a tone and
emotion that followers assume and replicate. Many
times second tier leaders take on the characteristics
of the leader because their belief is this is how I
need to act to be successful. The actual outcome is
the absence of respect and distain for the Fake

11. Leader’s followers. Authentic Leaders set a tone that
creates trust, which is the cohesive adhesive that
holds people and leaders together as one team.
Trust is fact based with follow through actions
toward achievement, which set a tone of leadership.
Trust is a history of people working together and
communicating thoughts and feelings, and taking or
not taking action to achieve a common goal. It does
not take long for observers and followers to either
have trust or the absence of trust with regard to a
leader. The opposite of trust is not mistrust it is the
absence of trust. I have no mistrust with the person
if we have no history (just met). Trust = doing what
you say. Trust = showing that you are capable and
the Authentic Leader (AL) has trust in you and
followers in the Authentic Leader’s ability to perform.
Leadership must be built on mutual trust. Trust is an
outcome of doing what you say based on facts, care
and supporting the facts in achieving the promises
that were given. Trust begins by the Authentic
Leader setting the right tone.
Authentic Leaders – #3: Focused Attention
Attention by leaders is shown by a concentration
and fulfillment of a project, topic, or promise. It is
completeness and dedication to fulfilling what was
said and or promised. Authentic Leaders listen to
themselves and have a commitment to connect with

12. others and follow through. They demonstrate care
and compassion through the communication
connection of listening and working toward
accomplishing what they said they would do. They
listen with their eyes and ears. The Authentic
Leaders listen to what is and is not said and guide
the discussion in a productive and learning way.
They listen to motivate direct reports. Effectively
listening is motivating to followers because the
followers knows they are being listened to and that
their ideas, when possible, will be implemented.
When you see a great deal of turnover, you know
that people realize the leader is Fake.
Authentic Leaders – #4: Have the ability to
Discern
Leaders who have the ability to understand the
present situation are capable of knowing what action
to take. They understand the actions to take
because they are students of the past, present, and
future. They intuitively know what is needed and
how to address the situation. They understand the
history of leadership and can flexibly meet the
challenges moving forward in an action-oriented
plan that meets the need to solve the present
moving toward the future. Authentic Leaders move
from the chaos to clarity rather than dealing with the
chaos and thriving on chaotic empty promises.

13. Authentic Leaders – #5: Communicate Clearly
Authentic Leaders are Influencers, who are capable
of having people adopt their ideas because of truth,
trust, discernment, character, and are role models
for the majority of followers. Being able to
communicate effectively so that people respect you
is critical to being an Authentic Leader. Authentic
Leaders have a clear message and that message
does not need to be clarified or managed by second
tier leaders. An Inclusive leader is not a deceitful,
myopic leader with little to offer once empty
promises are exposed. As opposed to Fake Leader
who underestimates the difficulty of the present
situation and overestimate their abilities to be a
leader. Authentic Leaders assess the situation and
realize the difficulty and speak with clarity and truth
for the well-being of followers.
Keep a Scorecard on leaders and measure them
against the truth, inclusively and what is best for all.
How do your leaders rate? The next time you have
the opportunity to observe leaders, rate them and
see where they score: Fake or Authentic Leader.
Then, you have a decision to make as to whom you
want to follow!