5 Critical Mistakes that Derail Leaders

 

 

 

 

 

 

Companies rise and fall on leadership. Period. And there are five areas that the best senior leaders tend to focus their attention. It’s no surprise that these same areas are where unsuccessful senior leaders make critical mistakes.

These are the most critical mistakes, because by the time the leader or other senior managers can understand what has happened, there is massive momentum heading towards a discouraging future.

The Research

Robert S. Hartman, a Nobel Prize Nominee, devotes his efforts to helping people maximize their leadership potential, understand their thinking and prioritize team dynamics. Through his study of The Science of Axiology (a scientific approach to how people make value judgments in leadership situations), Hartman has developed a valuable assessment tool.

Throughout his research, he noted that high-performance leaders selectively place importance on some information while neglecting other information. The result is criteria for decision-making. After surveying and assessing over 1000 top leaders worldwide, he found a pattern of consistent attention and regular lack of attention to vital areas of leadership.

What follows are The Five Most Common Mistakes Of High Performance Leaders, inspired from the research of Robert Hartman, and from decades of my performance consulting, coaching and leadership training.

Five Critical Mistakes that Thwart High-Performance Leaders

1. Lack Of Consistency And Conformity

Although most senior leaders will profess that consistency and conformity are top priorities for the growth and scaling of their company, in practice many leaders demonstrate and/or embody a different message. Conformity is usually a paradox in growing corporations, where thinking outside the box is heavily encouraged. And consistency could even be a joke – depending on how much rapid growth is occurring at an organization – it is not uncommon for a trend of “fire fighting” to take hold as the company culture.

To avoid this mistake: Messaging how important systems and procedures are to your team, even in rapid growth, is essential. Systems and procedures maintain brand, product, customer service and other departmental consistency to the customer. Internal attention to having growth spurts be individual stages that get gelled back into the corporate structure will pay huge dividends.

2. Lack Of “Strategy Follow Through” Discipline

It is tough to choose a strategic direction, see less then favorable results, and stay the course. The innate human instinct is to jump ship quickly before the ship goes down!

However, more often than not that the problem is not the strategy, but the tactical execution of it. Top leaders often look for the “right” strategy, and although there are likely stratospheres of probability for strategic outcomes, world class leaders focus on execution and course-correction of a strategic direction before abandoning ship. Having the discipline to continue the course-correction process, particularly through the ability to ask probing questions, results in solutions. This is how we solve problems that are real versus solving problems that are an extrapolation of a probable outcome.

To avoid this mistake: Consider the best case, worst case and possible unexpected forks in the road ahead of time. Work with your team to create the expectation of long-term commitment to a strategy – even through tough times. Focus on the execution of a strategy chosen and avoid the temptation to keep returning to the drawing board!

3. Lack Of Mission, Vision, Values

There are very few companies where one could walk into a random office, ask team members to recite the Mission, Vision, Values of the company, and have them actually recall something even similar to the document prominently displayed in the lobby. Yet, this offers the most compelling barometer for all decision-making and emotional engagement of your team. The No. 1 reason the team is not related to the company Mission, Vision, Values is because the leader is not connected to it.

When a leader is disconnected from, not embodying or not presenting the Mission, Vision, Values of the company frequently – in meetings, emails and at corporate events – the entire culture begins to slide. Team cohesion and focus wane, perhaps not all together but surely from the optimum state, and you end up with disengagement and dissatisfaction in the company.

To avoid this mistake: Create a daily habit that connects you with the Mission, Vision and Values of the company. As the leading beacon for the company, this is the leader's primary driver, and should be consistently present in both physical and psychological form all day long. If you find that your documented Mission, Vision and Values no longer ring true, make it a priority to update them to ones that you and your entire company can get behind.

4. Lack Of Instilling Responsibility And Integrity

There are two common mistakes that thwart the interest in increasing self-ownership and high accountability in companies.

The first is “Leadership by Friendship.” We all know that a leader who interacts with their team by being the “best buddy” or friend will often fail to make good judgments, hard decisions and key shifts at important inflection points. Most Senior Leaders ask themselves, “How can I get my team to take higher levels of Self Ownership and Accountability?” but often sacrifice what they want most in an attempt to avoid upsetting the “culture.” Once the leader has allowed accountability to drift and get sloppy, the rest of management follows and results inevitably suffer.

The second common mistake that thwarts instilling responsibility and integrity is “Leadership by Fear.” Commonly taking the form of passive-aggressive or simply aggressive interaction, communication and actions, this model requires constant attention and energy by the leader. This model primarily inputs scarcity into the culture – leading to a “good enough to not get your head bitten off” model. The carrot and the stick are only part of the equation that causes self-ownership and high accountability:

Clear Expectation + Owner Agreement + Rewards & Consequences = Ownership And High Accountability

To avoid this mistake: Setting an example of clear, actionable expectations, soliciting agreement from your team and having a published and clear set of Rewards & Consequences will instill responsibility.

5. Little Fostering Of Innovation, Innovative Thinking And Change

How does this jive with Mistake No. 1? Well, along with the need for systems, procedures, conformity and consistency, a company will also need a high level of innovation, innovative thinkers and a drive for constant change.

From a politically correct standpoint, every leader will tell you that they encourage out of the box thinking, or innovative thinking. In practice, many company cultures instill a sense of fear for stepping too far out, really being a true innovator, or creating change. Even if some innovation is allowed, the leader must decide how far down the chain of command there is willingness for innovation and change.

To avoid this mistake: Top companies and leaders have designed systems that support innovation and for employees and key execs to have the experience of their input actually impacting the company (and possibly strategic decisions). A top leader can avoid a stagnant company by fostering innovation from every person at the company and openly rewarding those that contribute.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Ten of the Biggest Ways Leaders Break Trust

 

 

“Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work."                                                             

                                                                     – Warren Bennis

Trust is a word everyone understands but few can accurately define or measure. It seems at once essential but fluffy, complex yet simple. According to the Human Capital Institute, trust can be defined as “the willingness to put oneself at risk based on another individual’s actions.”

What does that mean in a business context? And how can trust be measured in economic terms like risk, speed, and cost? Research has shown that high-trust organizations have a total return to shareholders that is 286 percent higher than low-trust organizations (Say what!). The top 25% of retail stores that rank high on trust achieve 7% above budget annual sales and 14% sales productivity gains. The impact of trust on productivity and efficiency is clear.

Surprisingly, the simplicity of trust lies in the economics: as trust increases, so does speed. Speed goes up in high-trust cultures because costs and risks go down. In organizations where trust is low, costs and risks go up, resulting in a trust tax that slows down work across the organization.

So, it follows that as companies grow, trust often erodes because it becomes increasingly difficult to develop relationships, resulting in layers upon layers of bureaucracy that act as a poor substitute for trust. In fast-paced business environments where companies must evolve quickly to keep up with the speed of technology, building and maintaining trust at scale is more important than ever.

The complexity of trust is that it can be difficult to build, yet easy to break. While trust can take a long time to build, it is also delicate enough to be destroyed through a single action or misconception. Yet the benefits of investing time into building trust can lead to exponential results.

I believe most people strive to be honorable and trustworthy in their leadership roles. There aren’t too many people who wake up in the morning and on their way into the office exclaim to themselves, “I think today is a fabulous day to break someone’s trust!” Most leaders unintentionally erode trust through what I like to call “trust busting” behaviors. Despite our best intentions, we sometimes get in our own way and bust trust without even realizing it.

I did a little crowd-sourcing with my peers in the leadership development field and asked them to send me a list of the most common trust-busting behaviors they’ve experienced from leaders in their career. The wisdom of the crowd was incredible. The behaviors on their lists were eerily similar.

In classic David Letterman style, here’s the list of the Top 10 Ways Leaders Break Trust:

10. Spinning the truth – Leaders break trust when they try to shape or color the truth to their liking rather than being transparent and authentic in their communication. Spinning the truth is a form of deception, just in a more socially acceptable manner, but it’s deception nonetheless. Save spin for the gym, not the workplace.

9. Not being available – If your schedule has you constantly booked in meetings and unavailable to the questions or concerns of your team members, you are sending the message that you don’t care about them. That may not be how you really feel, but it’s the message that’s being sent. Your schedule is a reflection of your values and priorities, so be sure to build in time for regular 1:1 meetings with your team members or just blocks of time where people can drop in (Virtually or in person) for quick questions.

8. Not soliciting or listening to feedback – Believe it or not, your team members probably have pretty good ideas about how to improve your business if you’ll only ask. And if you do ask, make sure you do something with their feedback. Asking for feedback and then disregarding it undermines trust more than not asking for it at all.

7. Withholding information – Why do leaders withhold information? It’s because information is power and power is control. Most people think distrust is the opposite of trust. It’s not. Control is the opposite of trust. If you’re withholding information it’s likely because you’re trying to control your environment and the people around you. People without information cannot act responsibly, but people with information are compelled to act responsibly.

6. Taking credit for other people’s work – Leaders can easily fall into the habit of taking credit for work of their team members. Because it is work produced by their team, the leader rationalizes that it’s OK to take credit for it personally. Trustworthy leaders do the opposite. They call out the good performance of team members and credit those individuals for doing the work. Taking credit for the work of others is another form of plagiarizing. It sends the message to your team members that you don’t value their work and it’s more important for your ego to get credit than giving it to someone else.

5. Not keeping confidences – Integrity is the hallmark of trustworthy leaders. If someone tells you something in confidence then it should never be shared with someone else. Gossip, hallway or slack conversations, or speaking “manager to manager” about something told to you in confidence should not happen. Above all, you should protect your integrity as a leader. At the end of the day it’s the only thing you have.

4. Playing favorites – Want to corrode trust and divide your team from within? Then play favorites and watch your team burn. It’s a recipe for disaster. Now, treating people fairly doesn’t mean you have to treat everyone the same. Most leaders resort to this leadership tactic because it’s the easiest thing to do. In reality, it can be the most unfair thing you do. Aristotle said, “There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequals.” They key to fairness is treating people equitably and ethically given their unique situation.

3. Inconsistency – A key element of being trustworthy is reliability and predictability. Trustworthy leaders behave consistently from setting to setting. They don’t have wild swings of behavior, exhibit temperamental outbursts, or say one thing and do another. Inconsistent leaders keep their team members on edge because they never know who is going to show up. It’s hard to trust someone when you can’t rely on the consistency of their character.

2. Micromanage – As mentioned in regards to not sharing information (point #7), micromanagement is about control. Micro-managers often rationalize their behavior by saying they’re trying to ensure high quality, or they have the most knowledge and expertise, or they are protecting their team members from failure. That’s BS. Hire smart people, train and coach them properly, and then let them do their jobs. Trust requires risk and leaders need to be the first to take a risk, extend trust to team members, and let them succeed or fail on their own.

And the #1 way leaders break trust…

1. Not keeping their commitments – Most leaders have every intention to follow through on their promises, but the problem lies in our eagerness to make the promise without having a clear idea on what it will take to deliver. Leaders tend to be problem-solvers and when a problem presents itself, leaders spring into action to marshal the resources, develop an action plan, and get the problem solved. It’s important to carefully chose your language when you make commitments with other people because although you may not use the word “promise,” others may interpret your agreement to take the next action step as a promise to accomplish the goal. Be clear in your communications and set the proper expectations for what you are and aren’t committing to do.'

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, facilities management, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.