Not all weakness are the same
Waffles are uniquely tasty because of what they don’t have. It’s the empty spaces that make them delightful. The empty spaces catch and hold sweet stuff like: butter, syrup, jam, or peanut butter.
Trust and empty spaces:
Don’t trust leaders that think they can do all things well. You can trust people who know and acknowledge they have empty spaces.
Our empty spaces open doors of influence. Call me perverse, but I love people who struggle, fail, learn, and get up again. I’m drawn to them. I’m open to learn from them.
“Omni-competent” leaders are either intentional phonies or they don’t know they don’t know. In either case they are dangerous.
Embracing what you can’t do opens doors to effective delegation, acquiring new skills, attracting new talent, and most importantly, trust. However …
Not all weaknesses are the same.
Ten characteristics and behaviors that derail leaders:
- Over-dependence on a mentor
- Inability to adapt to a boss with a different style
- An insensitive, abrasive, or bullying style
- Aloofness or arrogance
- Betrayal of personal trust
- Self-centered ambition
- Failure to constructively face an obvious problem
- Micromanagement
- Inability to select good subordinates
- Inability to take a long-term perspective
List source: Individual Differences in Leadership Derailment
It pays to know the difference
Even though this post focuses on weaknesses, success is always based on leveraging strengths. However, some weaknesses are incredibly dangerous. Without attention, some weaknesses will derail you.
When do a leader’s weaknesses become problems?
Dear Dan,
I think, leader’s weaknesses become problem when s/he does not realise, accept and improve from weaknesses. Repeatation and unlearn are more important. Repeated weaknesses are more dangerous than new ones. I agree that arrogance and insensitivity make leader blind to see their blind spots. The other and perhaps more prevalent weaknesses of leaders are their lust or narccissism for their position. They want their position by any means and that blinds them to do anything and everything. Acceptance of the weaknesses openly and showing inability to master everything make leader more credible. But, usually people do not believing in acceptance weaknesses openly. They fear of being exposed and perceive that their reputation and image will stumble but the reality is opposite.
Delegation creates trust and it also creates leaders. When person creates leader, he is trustworthy but when person plays games to save or protect his position then he can not create trust, though he might create followers in short run. People who are position centric, creates fear but finally they crash. On the other hand, people who empowers others, create trust and they deserve respect even after they leave the position or organisation.
Dear Ajay,
Your comment is so rich. You enrich the LF community.
In particular, I’m taking, “Delegation creates trust and it also creates leaders.” Nice one!
Have a great week.
Best to you,
Dan
Ajay is a featured contributor on Leadership Freak. Read his bio at http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/ajay-gupta
Keep up the great work. Between your blog and your tweets, I find encouragement and motivation daily. May God continue to use you and bless you as you help others move forward and step out in truth.
Phil,
What a great way to begin a new week. People always need encouragement. Thanks for being an encourager.
Best,
Dan
What a great article Dan. Well articulated – especially the part about the positive value of ‘weaknesses’ (or knowledge / skill gaps) as opportunities for engaging others and leveraging their strengths. Especially in cultures where ‘saving / maintaining face’ is still so dominant, this is such a hard one to communicate and convince leaders of. The belief that they must know-all and never be either wrong or without an answer is a really tough one to shift. When it happens, mind you, it’s beautiful to witness the relief for all involved, and the opportunities that are created for growth, development and greater engagement for ‘followers’.
Shoshana,
Well said. One of the great stress-relievers is accepting and acting consistently with who we are. It’s taken me years to catch a glimpse of that powerful truth.
I hadn’t thought about the cultural angle. Thanks for adding to the conversation.
Best,
Dan
Good stuff, Dan (Isn’t this your second post on waffles? They are so inspiring.)
I think weaknesses become a problem when we don’t see them. Most of the derailed leaders I’ve seen didn’t realize that they were behaving the way they were. They just couldn’t see it.
Keep up the good work!
Hi Geoff,
Thanks for remembering a previous post. I wrote on “Waffles” about a year ago. This post, used a portion of that post and then took it in a new direction.
http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/waffles-2/
It’s such a challenge to believe others when they try to show us we are derailing ourselves. Good call.
Thanks for adding value.
Best,
Dan
One thing I have found is that most of the derailed leaders believe all of their actions are legitimate due to perceived or real threats to their positions, knowledge, beliefs, or experience. It’s very ‘fight-or-flight’ and could have developed years before, in different roles and/or organizations. In finding compassion for their anxieties I have found new ways to manage those relationships before they become too toxic for me and I end up reacting emotionally. I think people are better at receiving feedback when they feel understood, if feedback is possible.
Mitchell,
Insightful post that expands the conversation. I love how you bring compassion to the mix.
Thank you,
Best,
Dan
When you first started talking about waffles, I wasn’t sure what to expect from today’s post. The picture, however, really illustrated an important concept in leadership: spaces. One of the things the article you referenced talked about was leadership evaluation. How does a leader know that he is a good leader? How can you rate her performance?
If you use a “top down” approach, you run the risk of missing all 10 of the characteristics that derail leaders. How many people go around bullying their boss? How often does the “big boss” know that the ambitious manager is climbing the corporate ladder on the backs of his team? Not often. If a leader wants a true picture of how they are doing, not only do they need feedback from the top, but from peers and from the people they lead. Until you get feedback from all angles, it will be difficult to fine-tune your leadership style and almost impossible to draw the best out of the team you lead.
KCW,
Your comment opens an important window that can let the light in. Sadly, some are afraid to open that window. The very fact that some are afraid of what those beside and below them would say, if they had a true opportunity, illustrates the problem.
Thanks for opening a window.
Cheers,
Dan
This post leads me to think of a local car dealership advertisement here in Tallahassee. The dealership is owned by two brothers. It is narrated by one brother who narrates video of his brother, saying, “That’s ‘Joe’ – he’s the early bird, the administrator. He opens the doors at 6:30 a.m. to greet the first service customers and take care of business. Me? I’m the 9:00 guy (more like 9:30) – that’s my sales background talking. The idea is that he’ll be there till the last potential sales customer leaves – he’s committed. It gives you the idea that these two know their strengths (and weaknesses) and long ago figured out that to be successful they need to emphasize the strengths in order to be profitable.
As far as when a leader’s weaknesses become problems, let’s go to the super-glaringly-obvious: Madoff. He personified #’s 3, 4, and 5 of your list – he trampled personal trust, was consumed by self-centered ambition, and failed to constructively face an obvious problem (failed to face it at all). Arguably, his “weakness” was psychopathological but the lessons to be learned abound. (For a great book on Madoff, I recommend http://lp.wileypub.com/Markopolos/.)
Paula,
I count on you to bring us a story or two that shines a light on important principles. One of the great ones is minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths. When I think about many organizations they seem to take delight in focusing on how to improve weaknesses. Of course there is a place for improvement. However, improving a weakness will seldom create as much value as maximizing strengths.
Thanks for adding your insights and resources to the conversation.
Cheers,
Dan
Paula is a featured contributor on Leadership Freak. Read her bio at http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/paula-kiger
People without weaknesses always scare me, namely because such thing does not exist, and those people are simply good at masking them.
That said, I hate you for that image you included in your post. Now I want waffles (and the fact I am in Italy doesn’t make it exactly easy).
Gabriel,
Perhaps one of my weaknesses is causing people to want what they can’t have. 🙂
Cheers!
Dan
At first I was going to list the other 10 characteristics at the other end of the spectrum, which probably are just as dysfunctional as your 10 Dan….imagine the leader who only flies at the 60,000 level never checking in or does not believe s/he ever needs a mentor. Sad…for the leader and for the followers.
Rather, what clicked with me was your ’empty spaces’…to not only “trust and know” your empty spaces. but cultivate them. I would add on and suggest that we grow our empty spaces, that we place high value in having empty spaces…to learn and understand. Besides creating a positive vulnerability for others, those spaces set an open standard, that we are here to grow, learn and share. Sounds like fun to me!
Empty spaces give us pause to reframe, reflect and recharge… and realign what is important to us.
Those empty moments are essential and maybe not so ’empty’. They may be rich moments where we can listen and learn, inside and out. Often we get far too busy with day to day ‘stuff’ and forget to take a breather and learn.
Gandhi said it well, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Doc, your thoughts echoed the ones that were rattling around in my head last night as I composed my personal blog post. In a moment of complete delusion, I thought I could write one blog post in answer to a friend’s musings about introducing her young son to formal religion when she had so many questions herself. I ended up with three principles that were based on Rumi’s 13th century teachings: 1) Searching and Restlessness lead to Arrival; 2) If you don’t till the soil (literal or figurative) it becomes hard and infertile; and 3) the beauty of maintaining a center while almost everything else is in motion. I am not sure any of those three things are at all possible without empty spaces.
(Here is the post: http://waytenmom.blogspot.com/2011/02/restless-on-arrival.html)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Please pass the maple syrup. 🙂
Doc,
You’ve out-done yourself today.
I find your observations both encouraging and motivational. Plus, you can’t beat some alluring alliteration.
Rock on!
Dan
Doc is a featured contributor on Leadership Freak. Read his bio at http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/doc
Dan, really good stuff. Made me hungry…for the obvious…and for continued learning and discovery for myself. For me, weaknesses become a real problem for a leader when the organization (other people) can’t compensate. Sometimes we don’t mind compensating for a leader’s weakness(es) because what the leader does bring outweighs those weaknesses. But, if the leader’s weakness(es) are glaring enough and getting in the way of progress and performance, that’s a problem.
That is why it is so crucial that leaders have great self-awareness and realize the difference between the things they don’t like to do, and things they really aren’t good at – in relation to what the department or organization requires. Are these areas things that the leader needs to work on because they are obstacles, or are they things that are annoying that would be nice to improve, but aren’t causing a material difference in how they lead or how the organization performs. Most of the 10 are areas that are obstacles for personal and professional development.
Thanks for the post.
Jim
Jim,
I found my head bobbing affirmatively as I read your insightful addition to the conversation.
I also started thinking about organizational cultures that both enable learning and compensate for weaknesses.
I’m thankful you added value to this conversation.
Cheers,
Dan
Great article and comments. I am always looking for ways to measure leadership and how to determine if someone is a true leader or just a boss. Your list is good and even had a couple that I hadn’t considered. I just read where gallup asked leaders to rate themselves and 97% said they were average of above average leaders. That isn’t mathematically possible is it?
To me this says that most people have a very limited view of their leadership abilities, and their strengths and weaknesses. I was just reintroduced to StrengthsFinder and have new insights that I didn’t catch the first time around.
By the way, we make some mean waffles (Mom’s old recipe). I’ll cook if anyone happens to be in Nevada. Anytime.
Thanks!
Mark
98% of all statistics are made up….author unknown 😉
Mark,
I read statistics that indicate that way more than the average think of themselves as above average. Not sure of the exact stats.
We should add there may be a thin line between healthy confidence and blindness to our weaknesses. I suppose the feedback of others is helpful in that regard.
Thank you for jumping into this conversation.
Best,
Dan
Dan, another HIT. I would like to just add to point 7 “Inability to select good subordinates”. This one really frightens me and makes me shudder as I have seen the consequences. I have actually seen it in its worst form when leaders consciously do not want to select good subordinates as they see them as a threat. Inability, as you put it above, is fixable as I am assuming its a blind spot for the leader but consciously doing it is unforgivable. I have always believed that if I am the smartest person in the room on any topic, then I am in big trouble! You don’t have to know everything and you are certainly surrounding yourself with the wrong team if you do know everything.
Thabo,
It seems like every comment adds new and helpful insights to this conversation. I hadn’t even considered the viewpoint you bring.
Thank you for sharing your perspective.
Best to you,
Dan
Dan, you are onto something here…
a Leadership Freak Community Cookbook…recipes for leadership to feed your mind, spirit and body!
–Waffling leadership
–Falafel followers
–Pizza productivity
–Ice cream influence (too much makes my head hurt!)
–Jambalaya learners
Hmmmm????
Doc,
If you don’t stop showing me up, you might force me to ban you for Leadership Freak! 🙂
I’ll have to correct you on the ice cream. Too much makes my belly hurt. Too FAST makes my head hurt. I crack myself up.
Having too much fun,
DAn
As Homer Simpson said of due diligence donut dedication…
“MMMMMM”
Com’on Dan, a ‘lean leadership’ cookbook…we would capture the foodies, the leaders and the leaners! What a market share! 😉
I’m bowing to your elocution
This is a very insightful post. I have always thought of “weaknesses” as “not-so-strong strengths” and because leaders can’t be strong in everything, we need to find others with complementary strengths. When I hire team members, I look for the soft skills in the applicants – the attitudes, the experience, how they worked with others…. and I always ask what they find is their weakest strength and their strongest. Thank you for making breakfast this morning!
Dan,
I`m open to learn from you. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Hi Dan,
Well said, A wise leader must always know his weakness and must strive to learn from the failures he incur due to his weakness.
Lessons learned from experience are more valuable to create a proactive approach and avoid the mistakes in future.
Micromanaging drives me NUTS! If you don’t trust me to do my job and do it well, why did you hire me? I agree. I’ve worked for so many arrogant folks who know everything, even when they don’t. Especially when what they are doing is making a lot of extra work for you. I’m so glad to be my own boss now. I’m easier to work for 😉
Blessings,
Mel
Please feel free to stop by: Trailing After God
This is awesome tape-it-to-your bathroom mirror kind of stuff. I just “ate up” your waffle analogy. Thank you!