The 7 Biggest Blunders of The Experienced Leader
#1. Forgetting who serves who. Leaders serve others so others can serve others. It’s easy to begin thinking the people around you are there to serve you.
Repeat to yourself, “I’m here to bring out the best in others.”
#2. Blaming rather than taking ownership. The first question real leaders ask when someone under-performs is, “What will I do to maximize their performance next time?”
#3. Thinking that self-perception is accurate. I’ve read that only about a third of us see ourselves the way others see us. You think you’re nice. Others think you’re a jerk. You see yourself as open to feedback and suggestions. Others see you as closed and rigid.
Hire a coach to perform a narrative 360 review. This process goes beyond filling out questionnaires. All participants are interviewed. To be effective, make this a forward-facing activity, not simply a backward-facing witch hunt.
#4. Hanging on to poor performers. Ask, “Would I hire this person knowing what I know now?” If the answer is no, reassign, re-train, redesign their job, or manage them out.
When performance is below the bar and there are no signs of improvement, help them find a better fit somewhere else.
#5. Getting stuff done while neglecting people development. Chances are you need to offer more feedback to your team members. Only the worst employees don’t want to know how they’re doing.
#6. Stretching others, but not pushing yourself. Exception is the end of excellence. You haven’t arrived. Continue to stretch others, just keep pushing yourself.
Push yourself more than you stretch others.
#7. Getting lost in the weeds. Daily pressures cause leaders to lose sight of the big picture. The end result is frustration and fatigue.
At the beginning of the day, ask yourself, “What are we really doing here?”
What’s on your list of top leadership blunders?
Which of these 7 blunders is #1 on your list?
In a lot of organisations, item 5 is a significant cause of item 4. It’s seen to be “cheaper” to hire somebody, use them 100% on delivering work, and when the job evolves beyond their skillset, can them and get somebody new. “We grow revenue, not people” is one way I’ve heard it said.
Thanks Mitch. Great seeing you here today. It’s sad when people are treated like tools. It’s difficult to give your heart when you’re treated like an object that doesn’t have a heart.
I have seen #4 totally alienate a workforce, we need to enhance the workers and sometimes that means letting go of “poor performers”, sometimes relocating works other times they just don’t have what it takes and they need to find a new career.
Knowing “we are here to serve” #1 is important for us to grasp and reaffirm our true mission. Many times its easy to get off course, stay on the right track.
Fabulous insight as always Dan!
Thanks Tim. Good people want to develop themselves and get ahead. It’s just smart to provide development opportunities. Frankly, if the people on your team don’t want to develop themselves, they will eventually become dead weight.
But “Fear is The Mindkiller,” and it may simply be some fear that the person has that is blocking their efforts to improve their performance. Are we coaching and mentoring?
(And also recognize that 1 in 3 people is mentally ill, so that might also weigh in — what that really means is that people have “episodes” that last for varying durations in time.)
Fear causes doubts! Doubts cause (fill-the-blank), “and the slippery slope begins”
When did we become “resources” & commodities?
All the management training provided and encouraged before 2004/2005 is gone! Maybe I am not seeing it (entirely possible as a independent consultant), but the U.S.A. management is not what it used to/should be.
Why the erosion of the middle-class?
Where in the world 🌎 is it ok 👌 to have a two-class society? What caused the USA 🇺🇸 to start the DIVE back to its two-class roots?
I think number 4 is a huge blunder and a difficult one to navigate. I am in education and I ask myself, knowing what I know now about them would I hire them for a position on this campus? If the answer is NO, how do I coach them up so that the answer would be YES or how do I manage them out? This to me is one of the most difficult aspects of leadership.
Thanks Chris. Yes. There are many issues in dealing with poor performers. Some are personal. For example, if you hired them, you feel some responsibility for the. You also may want to save face.
Regular performance conversations that include growth goals should help. When it becomes apparent that a person isn’t developing/growing, taking corrective action makes sense. I don’t mean to make this situation easy. But it needs to be transparent and just.
Great list, Dan. ALL of the items are relevant. We constantly talk of cascading down, and we seldom talk of bubbling from the bottom, A Desk is a Dangerous Place from which to View the World and those leaders who are engaging their people are also listening to their thoughts and ideas.
Poor performers ARE an issue, but we also need to remember that the DO contribute, they DO have knowledge and they COULD be better involved and engaged. Peer pressure is known to be an extraordinarily powerful motivator and the focus on SHARED goals and expectations can help push them forward.
We also MUST remember that 50% of the people in ANY / Every organization are Below Average Performers. That is simply a statistical reality. No matter how excellent, someone is always the worst performer. That does not mean that they cannot improve and it might mean that they see things differently than others.
I would love your thoughts on that. The OVERALL contribution of all of the workers is what generates results. Not everyone can be a winner and that is why most extrinsic motivational schemes simply do not work.
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Thanks Dr. Scott. When we compare everyone with each other your observations are accurate. When we treat individuals as individuals stacked ranking isn’t quite as relevant. I’m not saying it’s easy.
Regardless of the way we determine an individuals performance, for me the issue is improvement. Are they getting better? This would include learning how to better apply strengths and mitigate weaknesses. If they aren’t getting better, they need to change or find a place where they can. (It could be within the organization.)
Thanks again for your insights.
That is why I use the phrase, “Continuous Continuous Improvement” because there is no end point to things; I started the redundant use when people in my quality network were claiming that they had DONE “continuous improvement” within their organizations.
I got the idea from The Department of Redundancy Department. (grin)
AND, I am simply SO GLAD to see a few big name companies moving quickly away from the performance appraisal thing as well as implementing bans on late night business emails and similar workplace hammers. There are simply so many things we can choose to do differently to improve leadership. Keep hammering!!
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The phrase “getting better” (and Dr. Simmermain’s “improvement”) has a certain cringe factor associated with it – “not yet good enough.” Maybe people would be a bit more receptive to “growing” or “developing new skills.”
Thanks Ken. The thing that makes you cringe is actually why I like ‘better’. One factor in growth is realizing that we haven’t arrived.
Having said that, I generally use terms like growth and development.
Glad you stopped in.
@ Scott ZImmerman – Statistically you are correct, however, how do you address teams of high performers where everyone relative to the rest of the organization are role model performers but you as a leader/manager of that team have to put them into that “below average” bucket for your team?
THAT is one of the really biggest problems with Performance Appraisals as they work in reality, plus the fact that people want to receive performance feedback that allows them to improve personally and professionally but they do NOT want to be evaluated and appraised and rated. Since you have framed up the issue, how can you then go out and ethically repeat those same behaviors? (grin) — There are SO MANY things that we need to change in the workplaces and Dan writes about them all the time.
And what is WRONG with a statistical reality? (It is actually “median” and not “average” but that is me simply being picky in my language).
Just because we are forced to do things does not mean that they are the right things to do. Right Dan? Weigh in here, my friend.
Fear causes doubts! Doubts cause (fill-the-blank), “and the slippery slope begins”
When did we become “resources” & commodities?
All the management training provided and encouraged before 2004/2005 is gone! Maybe I am not seeing it (entirely possible as a independent consultant), but the U.S.A. management is not what it used to/should be.
Why the erosion of the middle-class?
Where in the world 🌎 is it ok 👌 to have a two-class society? What caused the USA 🇺🇸 to start the DIVE back to its two-class roots?
The question should WHY? You’re not going to the root-cause! Remember the 5-WHYs?
1.) Why is that happening?
and
2.) Why is that (#1) happening?
and
3.) Why is that (#2) happening?
and
4.) Why is that (#3) happening?
and
5.) Why is that (#4) happening?
and (maybe just to be safe/sure)
6.) Why is that (#5) happening?
IMHO, we’ve let ourselves slip back into a Pre-Industrial revolution mindset!? Why?
Why is it NOW “ok” to allow the erosion of the middle-class?
Why in the world 🌎 is it NOW ok 👌 to have a two-class society? Why has the USA 🇺🇸 started the DIVE back to its two-class roots?
Lack of acknowledgement: not answering emails, not acknowledging good work, not saying hi when passing an employee by, not saying hello when coming into a room, etc.
Thanks Zum…. The exciting thing about the concerns you raise is they can be fixed! But perhaps it’s a matter of commitment and self awareness.
Agree. Besides a lack of commitment and self-awareness, it is sometimes a lack of understanding the role of a leader. LIke how your blog addresses this area.
#4 another way to think about it–
Are people meeting or exceeding their goals and expectations? In high performing teams you have a 100% of the team members meeting and probably exceeding their goals.
People who are consistently below expectations need to be reassigned–find a better job fit or be terminated.
Thanks Paul. This is such an interesting topic. You might say that if you are always reaching your goals, you aren’t reaching high enough. In other words, we all should have some stretch goals. I realize this is difficult for some people. They believe they have to always succeed. But, the need to always succeed causes people to play it safe.
We need to give people permission to fail. We need to give ourselves permission to do things where failure is possible.
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
Forgetting to ‘push’ themselves and ‘coach’, provide guidance, direction to their team. Acknowledge, they themselves may still require coaching, albeit they are in a ‘leadership’ role. The one that I would place at the top of a leadership list is #2. The one I found interesting, I think I even went ‘wow’ was #3, only 1/3 of people… Question…can you ever attain the “end of excellence”? This suggests to me, someone may think they do not need to continue improving.
Thanks Thinker. I see leaders that are uncomfortable with the idea of having a coach. It’s sad. I probably reflects organizational culture as much as anything.
Tom Peters calls it the pursuit of excellence. What else is there?
“pursuit of excellence” computes with my mind more than “end of excellence”.
Being tunnel visioned. Not utlising, developing, the resources they may have at their fingertips, giving everyone a fair chance. Thinking they are ‘untouchable’.
Not knowing their team well enough, not realising they may not all talk in the same language.
Dan: My most frequent leadership blunder is seeking compliance over engagement. Pushing for compliance generates resistance, while fostering engagement builds momentum. Forgetting these physics of leadership have cost me a great deal of energy over the years.
This might be part of #1, but what about “Not going to bat for your team”. For example, when there is a demand/request made of a team that isn’t reasonable or will hinder performance and not standing up for the team’s best interest.
Think they are experienced enough? That they have seen the whole world?
This is a really helpful set of rules to be a good leader. My question is in a lot of organization people perceive the wrong people get promoted or get new opportunities; I wonder if #4 plans into that where underperformers get opportunities to find a fit for them. While top performers perceive they are overlooked for those opportunities causing some conflicts?
I’m not sure this is true it is a question but I was just wondering if that scenario seemed realistic.
An eighth blunder might be – Expectations of deference. Experienced leaders, particularly those in positions of authority, can get into a habit of not being challenged especially by subordinates. They can therefore lose emotional muscle tone and flexibility which comes from exercising these skillsets.
Very Good for reflection!
People do whatever they do because of what happened to them when they did it the first time . Inaction from the immediate supervisor rewards an unwanted behaviour accidentally. Continued under performance is mostly as a result of inappropriate consequence from supervisors.
SO MUCH organizational performance rests on what those supervisors do and do not do. And so many things influence those choices. The supervisor is King of the Workplace, and if they could only choose better alternatives when it comes to supporting their people, the lives of many would be dramatically improved.
But the reality is that supervisors are accountable for performance, and aversive control tends to be more of the norm. Many are simply untrained to make the right choices for the Big Picture, and many have never had good role models. Things will change when things change, I guess…
Great post! I am a Sergeant in the United States Army and I obsoletely agree with everything in this post. Leadership is about bettering others not just yourself.
Can you please check out my first blog. Would love to see what you think of it.