Sujit Nair@sujitnair90
Have you ever noticed how some leaders are surrounded only by applause, never by questions?
There is a simple but uncomfortable truth. When everyone around you is constantly praising you, something is already broken. Either the people around you lack competence, or you have slowly created an environment where honesty is unwelcome. In most cases, it is the latter. Inefficiency at the top has a way of breeding silence below. And silence, over time, disguises itself as admiration.
That is often the first sign of decline.
Self indulgence and self obsession do not just distort personality, they distort decision making. When decisions are driven by personal validation rather than collective purpose, they begin to serve the ego instead of the objective. And once that happens, even seemingly strong institutions start weakening from within. What looks like confidence on the surface is often insecurity that cannot tolerate dissent.
The teams such leaders build are rarely strong. They are compliant. They mirror the leader, not challenge him. They become echo chambers filled with agreement, not competence. And when reality finally intervenes, these structures collapse far more quickly than they were built.
This pattern is not limited to one space. We see it in politics, in corporations, and sometimes even in smaller institutions around us. It is always the same script. A leader who stops listening, a team that stops thinking, and decisions that slowly drift away from reality.
In the case of Donald Trump, the consequences are not confined to one organisation or even one country. His decisions ripple across economies, alliances, and global stability. When leadership at that level begins to reflect these traits, the cost is not theoretical. It is real, and it is global.
The worrying part is not that such leaders exist. They always have. The real question is, why do systems and people continue to reward them?
Because in the end, leaders rise not just by their own design, but by our collective tolerance.
