Top 25 Dumb Mistakes Leaders Make
Yesterday I asked the Leadership Freak Coffee Shop on Facebook: “What’s the dumbest thing you’ve seen a leader do?”
This morning while going for coffee with a local business owner, I ran into a friend and asked them the same question. In a short time they easily listed three dumb things. It got me thinking about mistakes leaders make so I wrote down my own list for your perusal.
After reviewing the list, let me know what you think the top three mistakes are. Feel free to add your own dumb mistakes to my list of twenty-five.
- Creating complexity.
- Losing sight of vision while focusing on details.
- Using the same relational-methods with all employees.
- Assuming people know what they’re thinking.
- Giving conclusions without explaining thought processes.
- Interrupting.
- Relying too heavily on email for communication.
- Blaming.
- Lying.
- Listening to critics that don’t share organizational values.
- Talking while in the heat of emotion.
- Creating urgency and then not following through.
- Focusing on problems rather than solutions.
- Hiding in the office.
- Wasting time in unfocused meetings.
- Intimidating.
- Not managing others emotional energy.
- Neglecting their energy.
- Postponing tough conversations.
- Paranoia.
- Partiality.
- Not providing timely feedback.
- Preaching teamwork while rewarding individual performance.
- Focusing on low performers while neglecting high performers.
- Tolerating behaviors that create office drama.
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Wow, when you list them all like that there’s a lot that can go wrong with leadership. My votes: 2. Losing sight of the vision, 11. Talking in the heat of emotion and 14. Hiding in the office.
Makes me think leadership is a lot like waiting tables — it must be a lot harder than it looks or a higher percentage would do it well.
Greg,
Your reaction to the list is the same as mine. I could have written more. Seeing what leaders can do wrong reminded me of how important and challenging good leadership is.
Thanks for adding value,
Dan
My favorites are also #2 and #14. I would add one more: Punishing bearers of blunt business truths (creating an atmosphere of sugar-coating real issues).
Hi Madelyn,
Favorite as in you love doing those two dumb mistakes? 😉 I couldn’t help taking a jab in fun…
Thanks for adding another “good” dumb mistake to the list.
Cheers,
Dan
Excellent Dan— You have hit all the high spots This is a list that needs to be reviewed often and put into ACTION on a regular bases Really makes you think…. but follow through will be the key!
Gene,
Failure to follow through may be at the top of the list. 🙂
thanks,
Dan
I planned on adding a few dumb things of my own to the list but saw myself so much in your list that I gave up. 🙂
Wouldn’t it be great if we could print out this post on paper and have a ceremonial burning so that they never occur again?
How about micro-managing….it tells people that you don’t trust them to fulfill duties.
26. Not asking enough (and the right) questions. Always remember the God given ratio – 2 ears, 1 mouth
8,9,11.
#8 and #9 are probably my least favorite. I’d add to that list “carry an egotistical attitude.”
There is another view of 13., which is not understanding the problem before launching into the solution. When dealing with finite resources, that can be throwing good money after bad. Personally, the dumbest thing I’ve ever done is let my emotions get the best of me during an interaction with another employee.
The list of 25 is quite a big list and much inappropriate. Leaders can’t go wrong to this extent. I feel 3-5 mistakes are just enough.
I may add ‘trusting people’ and ‘jumping to conclusions quickly’ are 2 other common things that few leaders are prone to.
Great list to reflect on. I’d like to add, ‘bad-mouthing the organization or your bosses to your employees’.
I think #17 -not managing others emotional energy, is probably the one that bothers me the most. Employees in an organization are the most valuable thing we have – to ignore the value that each employee has is like buying a smartphone with a data package and only using it to make phone calls.
Feel like they have to know everything
Not admitting that they don’t have all of the answers
Not owning up to their weaknesses and/or trying to do something about it
No. 4 is really funny if read literally — I think there are many employees who really don’t know what ‘they’ are thinking and/or feeling. Employees can be confused about how they ‘think’ about an issue by responding to issues when presented with incomplete or partial information.
I think .. ‘not trusting people’ is more harmful than ‘trusting people’ but I agree on jumping to conclusions
I think micromanaging and not delegating enough is also a dumb mistake leaders can make. Too many leaders want to hold on so tightly, that they micromanage their employees to the point where the employees don’t have the ability to grow, make their own mistakes to learn from them, and take ownership of their piece of the enterprise. Delegation is not losing control, the way micromanagers tend to look at things. It is actually liberating. To both the leader and employee. Allows the leader to focus on more strategic issues and allows employees to have skin in the game and ownership.
Mike, Great thoughts! This is just what happened in my case and I was able to flourish under the leadership of my senior manager. The best thing is I now having been trained properly can pass this on to future leaders and continue the development of greater leaders who will hopefully become better than me!
Flashed briefly on the Paul Simon song…50 ways to leave your lover… and to Greg’s comment…the scary part is you can combine 25x24x23x22…for a very long list of negative leadership permutations.
Dividing and isolating probably fits on the list somewhere. Keeping people out of the loop for (false) fear of loss of control (that you didn’t have in the first place).
GREAT list! It’s hard to think of another one. I thought of adding proceeding to step 2 before completing step 1.
I wonder if you could classify these and make them into a smaller list seems like alot can lead to another problem. This day in age I see number 7 happen alot. For me I know I do number 11 but I think that can be a good thing too- emotion has it’s place in the workplace it can be inspirational and passion is a huge driving force to getting things done. I loved Madelyn’s comment too about sugar coating I see that more and more.
spent a lot of time in #15!! These take a lot of energy out of passionate followers and produces murmurers and complainers…..
I think the term is “non valued added labor…..” key words NON VALUED!
Hard, hard, hard to narrow this down to three. Hiding in the office – you can’t lead if you’re not willing to face your people. Not managing others’ emotional energy – I would perhaps tweak it a little bit to call it not respecting or engaging with others’ emotional energy – it’s not always something that needs to be managed but it does need to be heeded. Losing sight of vision while focusing on details (or the wrong details). What would I add? Two things – assuming the rules are different for the leaders than the followers and using followers to do personal favors/tasks for the leader on work time.
Dear Dan,
A very true and classic list of dumb mistakes leaders do. I would add some more to your list. Manipulating things in their favour, Blocking information, pointing fingers towards others, interested is certain people of their interest, starting work after working hours, looking busy while they are not, making others confused blob……
I also believe that these habits are not the habit of true leaders but of true misleaders. They think that by practicing these things, they are known as leader but the fact is just opposite. People try to avoid them and sooner or later, come to know their real intention and faces.
A very important phenomenon, I have observed from some top level management is that they create space between themselves and others. They create so many procedure to reach them that people better think not to reach them. These leaders also do not follow what they say. They believe in posponing urgency and responsibility and they make it urgent and shift higher responsibility to others. Usually they speak soft to win favour of others whereas they are not helpful but attempts to be nice
#9 and #8.
Broken promises break trust.
Also – Treating employees as if they are dispensible and unimportant. This is a real morale killer.
Hi
Thank you!
4, 14 and 21. This is an interesting topic. Leaders are ofcourse not perpect. I am tempted to add that leaders are like most people. Perhaps the best a leader can do is to admit this? Will this make them better leaders? In some peoples eyes the answere is “no”. Some – even perhaps many – like and want a leader to be some kind of superhuman. It would be very interesting to hear what you think about this.
Your list contains negative traits that everyone I know have. Myself included. Often its a matter of definition or the eyes that behold. How come leaders have to be different? Do they have to be better than most people?
Some leaders can do a lot of mistakes and still be great. My experience is that the best leaders are the most humble leaders – those asking for help and admitting shortcommings.
Another great post Dan
Great post. It helps me not only reflect on my own mistakes, but also reminds me that my leader is just human and everyone makes mistakes.
That said, would #22 (Not providing timely feedback.) also encompass not providing any feedback at all? I think that is a terrible mistake. It entirely negates a person’s efforts or inquiry completely, making them less apt to perform, or try to perform, to the same level the next time.
#25 isn’t geting much attentionin these comments, butallowing drama kills morale no matter how great the boss is. The leader can be perfect, but if they allow drama from an employee, it drains morale & productivity.
I think someone else mentioned it, but micromanaging should be added. Of the ones on the list, numbers 1, 22, and 24 resonate with me as the biggest culprits. I would alter number 1 to say “Creating unnecessary complexity”. Feedback is HUGE and should be given almost daily, and it should be mostly positive. The purpose of feedback should be to encourage the behaviors you want to see repeated.
Great post – I have a couple to add, and would say # 9 Lying is the worst in my book. I truly believe you can only lose your integrity once with an organization. It is next to impossible to get it back.
I also think # 8 Blaming is a huge culture killer (unless you want to build a culture of terrified to do anything, slow to make decisions, negative employees).
My additions:
Scheduling “important” or “urgent” meetings and not showing up or sending word that you won’t make it. Huge time waster, very disrespectful, and something I’ve seen happen more times than I care to admit.
Taking credit for work that others have done. This is a huge demotivator, and word will get out.
Share secrets that aren’t yours to share or spread rumours. It should go without saying, but unfortunately…
Hi
Great list with 3 and 9 being amongst the worst things leaders can get up to. I’d add ‘not making decisions’ and ‘believing that only they know the answers’ to the list. Unfortunately I have personal experience of these and saw a great organisation descend into mediocrity because the new CEO kept making the same dumbass mistake. You could create a balanced scorecard using these, if you’re in an organisation that consistently delivers on those targets then you’d know it was time to get the hell out!
I think the top three would be 1, 8 and 12. I had a boss who committed these errors frequently, and she once blamed me for one of her mistakes in front of a customer! She also delegated a little too much responsibility to her employees, saving some of the easier tasks and most coveted time off for herself. Not the best leader.
My top 3 would be 15, 19, 22.
I’d also add:
Attempting to control thru failure to delegate
Losing track of the tactics while speaking to a vision– ungrounded strategies
Failure to anchor organisationally
14, 17, and 19….and a corollary to 19 – Explicitly telling senior managers to have mid-level supervisors conduct those “difficult” performance conversations but not doing so at the C-suite level.
Good list…yours plus comments now has at least 30!
Great list! I’d add: ignoring a problem; hoping it goes away on its own.
Here is one I bump into in my circles: Assuming their authority is equal to their competency.
Nicely said Glen.