In the news today the GM of the NFL Detroit Lions was cited for DUI recently. He was at a charity golf outing and you know the rest. His BAC was reported to be .21

We see this all the time. It is the nature of alcohol and, sometimes, of leadership. Alcohol, in the words of alcoholics anonymous, is cunning, baffling, powerful. It makes us do stupid things.

Leadership is about being in a position of power. It enables us to accomplish things and instills in us confidence that maybe should not be there. Maybe the leader isn’t that good? Maybe the market was good, or the team was good. But how often have you seen that person do stupid things based on this wrongly held belief. Or maybe they are really good and they wrongly handle the drinking and driving situation.

I know many people who can have a few drinks and be OK to drive. I have done that a few times in my life too. But then it moves from a few to too many. Where is that line? Of course, it differs for everyone.

How do you handle situations when you may have had too much to drink? What about your people? What about people you only casually know?

This isn’t about good judgment because when you are impaired you lose that. It is about planning ahead and listening to good counsel when you get it.

Have a great, and safe, summer.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.