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I first noticed it in the Army. I'd been in boot camp for two hours when, along with a couple hundred of my fellow recruits, I was herded into a line to enjoy my first Army free lunch. I had my foot on a low fence that ran along the walk leading to the mess hall and was chatting with the guy in front of me when a pimply-faced young man in a disheveled uniform (he looked like a teenage version of the Barney Fife character played by Don Knotts on "The Andy Griffith Show") ran out of the back door, poured a pan of warm, greasy water on my loafer -- I hadn't been in the army long enough to be issued boots -- and launched into a profanity-laced tirade in, what was to my Midwestern ears, an indecipherable regional accent.

When it finally became apparent that he was telling me that I was not allowed to put my foot on the fence, I unwisely inquired as to reason for that silly norm. I'm pretty sure he didn't know what a norm was but he did know how to find a very large, burly sergeant, who grabbed my shirt, pulled me out of the line, propelled me into the mess hall, threw a mop at me and informed me I was on KP (Kitchen Patrol) -- this was the "old," non-sanitized, non-politically correct Army whose clarity I eventually came to appreciate.

Barney Fife Jr. did his best to make boot camp KP live up to its hellish reputation. He was, at best, 18, scrawny, and at the bottom of the mess hall totem pole. I was 22, a college graduate, in good shape, and outweighed him by at least 50 pounds. But, he'd been in the Army six months longer than I, was an authority figure and had a chance to be my boss for a day.

When I emerged from that mess hall at 9 that night, I was exhausted, my civilian clothes were stained with grease and I'd learned two things: not to put my feet on mess hall fences and the ubiquity of what I now call the Barney Fife Leadership Syndrome.

The syndrome is alive and well in the Greensboro City Council and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. It involves the inappropriate use of power and influence in order to serve the personal agendas of those who wield it rather than for the greater good. It is a mark of poor leadership and is triggered by insecurities, inexperience and blind spots resulting from a lack of self-awareness. It is harmful to both the organizational system and, ultimately, to the personal growth and development of the perpetrating individual.

Barney Fife Jr. provides a relatively harmless, but nonetheless, instructive example. He was the runt of the litter, both literally and hierarchically. For a half day he could displace his hurt and wounded self-esteem by beating up someone else. This projection, however, did not result in a cleaner mess hall or better food and the next day he was still at the bottom of the pyramid, not having learned anything that could help him cope.

Both the City Council and the county commissioners are made up of elected representatives such as developers, real estate agents, small business owners, lawyers, nonprofit managers and community activists. None has long-term personal experience dealing with the pressures and trade-offs of managing large, complex, organizational systems; a very difficult job in the best of times, and exceptionally challenging in today's environment.

Yet, as victims of the Barney Fife Syndrome, some can't resist second-guessing experienced professionals, micro-managing, and letting their own agendas and blind spots get in the way of responsible public service. Unfortunately, those members who don't seem to be afflicted with the syndrome seem, for reasons of promoting artificial harmony, or just plain lack of courage, to let them get away with it.

Guilford County Commissioner Steve Arnold, a single-issue (ultra-conservatism) representative, has clasped hands with Chairman Melvin "Skip" Alston, a single-process and single-issue representative (backroom wheeling and dealing combined with latent 1960s racial activism). The result of this strange alliance has been the ousters of County Manager David McNeill and Deputy Manager Ben Brown, and closed-door budget and layoff planning. The result of this Barney Fife partnership has been an erosion of transparency and a lack of productive open dialogue.

It is a lose-lose proposition. Alston and Arnold's single perspective blinders grow through reinforcement, and they lose the opportunity to broaden their self-limiting world views. And the public loses because openness, dialogue and multiple perspectives always produce better solutions.

Our City Council is not immune to the Barney Fife Leadership Syndrome. Through the advocacy of members Mary Rakestraw and Trudy Wade and the false seduction of artificial unity on the part of other members, City Manager Mitchell Johnson was fired. The issue is not that Johnson was fired; it is that it was done in service of the Fife Syndrome. Whatever perceived affronts and issues triggered the personal agendas of these two members needed to be weighed against the cost of losing a professional manager in these troubled times.

Search firms cost money and reviewing candidates, although at times a seemingly interesting distraction for our elected officials, is just that: a distraction. The cost of allowing personal agendas, single issues and blind spots -- the stuff of the Barney Fife Syndrome -- to drive micromanagement and termination decisions is much higher and is toxic to responsible government. Many of these officials seem immune, perhaps because of Barney Fife-inflicted voters, from ever being voted out of office. Given that reality, their colleagues need to muster the courage to confront them, and from a systemic perspective, the time has come to seriously consider term limitations.

David Noer (dnoer@elon.edu) writes a monthly column for the News & Record on leadership, organizational behavior and community issues. He is the Frank S. Holt Jr. Professor of Business Leadership at Elon University.