10 Horrible Leadership Habits You Need to Get
Rid Of
The horrible leadership
behaviors I'm about to expound on are not mere platitudes
or hackneyed clichés.
They
remain, unfortunately, characteristics of well-meaning people on high perches
who have blind spots that keep them from growing into true leaders.
In the list below, you'll note the first item
is unique from the other nine. In a cultural or systemic context, it certainly
is "horrible" and needs to stop. The rest point to an assortment of
individual and team-leadership frightfulness that should make your hair stand
up.
Without further ado, I unleash leadership (or
lack thereof) truth.
The Horrible 10
1. Get rid of the old boys' club.
The glass ceiling has a hole in it that keeps
getting bigger, but despite these gains women remain underrepresented at all
levels of leadership.
In
January, Catalyst
reported that only 5.4 percent of the companies
in Standard and Poor's 500 index had female chief executive officers.
While stereotypes and bias remain among the
leading obstacles for women seeking leadership roles, truth is, companies are
leaving money on the table by not advancing women to leadership roles.
Case
in point: Development Dimensions International's "Global
Leadership Forecast 2014 | 2015--Ready Now Leaders" report found that organizations with better financial
performance have more women in leadership roles.
The report states that organizations in the
top 20 percent of financial performance counted 37 percent of their leaders as
women; among organizations in the bottom 20 percent, only 19 percent of leaders
were women.
Increasing gender diversity in leadership
teams means "greater diversity of thought, which, in turn, leads to
improved problem solving and greater business benefits," the report
states.
2. Get rid of your penchant for
micromanaging.
"Oh, I just love how my boss dominates
all our decisions, looks over our shoulders, and pushes us around," said
no employee ever.
In
2016, I conducted an independent workplace survey on LinkedIn and received
hundreds of responses to the question: "What is
the one mistake leaders make more frequently than others?"
Micromanagement was the No. 1 mistake
employees across the globe felt their managers make. Really, no surprise here.
Leaders who dominate people, decisions, and processes will ultimately derail a
team's morale.
Micromanagers operate their way out of sense
of power, and power is about control; don't let them fool you by having you
believe it's to keep from things going south, or because they want to ensure
things are done "the right way."
3. Get rid of the tendency to lead through
fear.
If you want to foster trust, hop off the
autocratic high-horse and stop instilling fear in the hearts and minds of
people.
This means allowing freedom for others to
experiment, lead themselves, stretch, and make mistakes. This will unleash
discretionary effort and your team will produce great results.
When leadership is less about control and
more about encouraging autonomy and collective wisdom, things happen. Let me
rephrase that: Financial growth happens!
In
WorldBlu's fascinating "Freedom at Work
Report: Growth and Resilience,"
organizations that promote freedom-centered leadership saw an average
cumulative revenue growth rate over a three-year period that was 6.7 times
greater than that of the S&P 500 companies. What company doesn't want this?
4. Get rid of how quickly you squash
innovation.
Leaders
who say they want an innovative team or culture and then turn
around and kill any new idea brought forth are subconsciously sabotaging the
creative process through a top-down approach.
Instead, they need a bottom-up
"pull" approach, supporting and nurturing innovation from "idea
people" who want to contribute and make a difference.
5. Get rid of your inability to actively
listen.
The lack of active and respectful listening
and two-way communication (sending without receiving) is a clear shortcoming
for many leaders. What I want to focus on here is the willingness to listen to
constructive feedback--especially the kind you don't want to hear.
Many leaders don't want to listen to the
ideas, opinions, and constructive feedback of others. They operate in an ego-system,
not an ecosystem. Unfortunately, if you've ever worked with this type of
leader, it can be exhausting.
6. Get rid of how you ignore the development
of your people.
You want to disengage employees as fast as a
joy ride on the Autobahn? Treat them as if they are plain worker bees with
dead-end career paths.
Great leaders will invest in top employees
long term, with learning, development, and mentoring opportunities. They create
an environment that motivates people and keep their performance at a high level
by doing things like:
·
Making it safe for them to take risks and to
make mistakes. There is immense learning that comes from failure.
·
Encouraging and affirming them by asking
about their development, and whether they're getting enough opportunities to learn
and grow.
·
Identifying each person's unique skills and
strengths, and using them where they are best suited for business outcomes.
·
Giving employees a front-row seat in
experiencing the process of how their work, task, or role aligns with the
larger goals of the organization.
7. Get rid of your lack of self-awareness.
Self-awareness is one of the most important
capabilities for leaders to develop. And it is a learned trait.
A self-aware leader is optimistic and
resilient. He or she bounces back from failure and keeps morale high for the
team during the storm.
Instead of self-defeating behaviors of
"Why me" or "Why us," self-aware leaders probe and ask
themselves questions like:
·
Why do the same issues keep coming up over
and over?
·
What needs to change?
·
What's triggering me to respond to situations
(or my team members) with negative emotions?
·
What makes me think, act, and feel the way I
do? What makes me tick? What pushes my buttons?
Having a complete self-understanding gives
you an edge. You can manage yourself and your emotions, identify opportunities
for development, and make the most of your strengths.
8. Get rid of your ineptness with influencing
those around you.
We've
all heard the John Maxwell saying "leadership is influence." The
fastest way to have it is to get other people to respond emphatically to your
leadership. When you do, you're
influencing.
I submit the following as your road map for
influential leadership:
·
Gain the trust of others by giving it as a
gift even before it's earned.
·
Let go of your ego. Release control. Share
power.
·
Show competence. Competence builds confidence
in your people. And their confidence in you will ultimately deliver excellence.
·
Inspire others to find their voice. When you
cast a vision, enroll your followers to express their voice as co-creators and
co-contributors to the vision.
·
Develop a culture in which employees are
given ownership over decisions.
9. Get rid of your habit of hogging the
spotlight.
I wrote an article about how Cheryl Bachelder, CEO of Popeyes
Louisiana Kitchen, transformed her business through the principles of servant
leadership.
She says too many leaders hunger for the
spotlight, want to stay in the spotlight, and forget to shine the spotlight on
others.
In her strategy sessions with her leadership
team when she came on board in 2007, she asked, "What if we turned the
spotlight to the people we serve instead of keeping it to ourselves. What would
that look like?"
Well,
they did. And the results were
incredible.
10. Get rid of your invisible-leader act.
The invisible boss is the one that's often
missing in action when he's needed the most. Most of the time you'll find him
hibernating in his office with the door shut, having "important"
conversations with his closest allies--other leaders who are also MIA.
Such leaders avoid personal interaction,
especially when things are going south. They will manage by email and text, and
avoid communicating in person for fear of facing conflict (which, if they knew
better and faced with courage, would be avoided altogether).
This leader is only interested in good news,
because he's not able to handle anything more. Got a problem? Talk to someone
else.
By Marcel
Schwantes
http://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/first-90-days-horrible-leadership-habits-you-need-to-get-rid-of.html
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