The signs of a leadership crash are common across an array of different professions. That was the message of Dr. Stephen Mansfield in a compelling presentation at the Financial Service Institute's OneVoice conference in Orlando earlier this week.

"It's the small things," Mansfield noted as he began his talk before listing ten common signs. "Termites do more damage than tornadoes."

These signs include:

1. Being out of season. There is an invisible rhythm to life and leadership and to be out of season is to be vulnerable. Many leaders stay too long on the job. Just think of Brett Favre.

2. Surrendering to bitterness. Under pressure, unresolved wounds surface. When Richard Nixon, a brilliant man, was faced with impeachment, he pounded the floor of the Oval Office complaining about how he was treated in high school. He allowed bitterness to deform his soul.

3. Reversing gender roles. Mansfield confessed he was walking on egg shells here. But women are about context, while men are about direction.
"Women are superior in every area of aptitude except two, abstract thought and aggression," he said. As Goethe commented, girls we love for what they are; men we love for what they promise to be.

4. Living isolated. I thought this described all politicians and most leaders.  Driven by hurt, guilt and grief, it kills great leadership and then kills the leader.

5. Losing trusted friends. Look at Tiger Woods after his father died. Only the devoted friends who do not fear you will keep you whole. His
buddies like Michael jordan and Charles Barkley led him astray, Mansfield remarked.

6. Perpetuating an image. Meaningful branding comes from a wise blend of vision, values and reality. Before he crashed, the Rev. Jim Bakker
recalled he had to raise $2 million every two days just to stay alive.

7. Refusing confrontation. We do not see ourselves accurately except through the feedback of others. Confrontation guards the soul and elevates performance. Sadly for Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky said no one ever confronted him about child abuse. "If you allow small explosions, you will prevent the big explosions from happening," Mansfield said.

8. Building a third world. Most leaders know two worlds, work and home. Bill Clinton allowed a third world to emerge in the White House between
work and home.

9. Forgetting fun. Leadership presses the leader into a one-dimensional life. Push back, Mansfield declared. He explained that when Winston
Churchill was rejected by the British political establishment, he took up painting and brick-laying and built a beautiful country home, Chartwell, with his own hands.

10. Serving the schedule. A schedule should serve a purpose. When it comes a purpose of its own, a crash is imminent. "If you don't know why
you are doing it, you lose the poetry," Mansfield warned.