October 1st 2007We've all experienced it...working with a colleague who takes all the credit for whatever success the department or division achieves. It is frustrating-and not motivating-to be around. It's even worse to have to report to a person like that. Having researched this particular aspect of nonleadership, I've found that these department heads have some traits in common. As a rule, they all have low self-esteem, are fairly insecure, and cannot tolerate pushback from their direct reports. To insulate themselves, they put yes-men and -women in direct-report roles and survive until their superiors wake up one day and realize there's a nonleader in place running a dysfunctional group.