Ten Things Leaders Do Poorly
Excerpt
This article highlights some of the awful practices that make individual leaders ineffective. We want leaders to consider what makes them unproductive. Because of these various characteristics, they usually don’t endear themselves to their stakeholders.
We encourage leaders to examine the effects of these practices to help bring them to awareness and understanding. The insights will make some uncomfortable, yet they will lead to considering changes.
The Ten Things Done Poorly
We observed and recorded the information, knowledge, and wisdom presented here from our participation in various projects over thirty years. It is not a comprehensive list because the reader will probably add insights to improve the ideas. We invite you to read all the way carefully through the entire list before making judgments.
Leaders under-articulate their reason for existence inside the business. The reasons for existence usually don't match the published vision, mission, and core value statements the world perceives. It may have at one time, but the hurried pace of product development, launch, and continued research investment tends to make the internal belief systems bankrupt over time. This under-articulation is a root or systemic cause of many problems. See Systemic Symptoms
Leaders use close-follower product development strategies, which reduces the value of the draw for high-performance and innovative employees. The me-too concept doesn't create high degrees of internal commitment, motivation, and worthy reasons to participate.
The 4 P's are generally not followed well: purpose, people, participation, and process. see Choice Awareness | Products | Methodology | CAM OPA Model
Underlying systemic beliefs are not established for each of these 4 P’s. Both informal and undocumented beliefs take over and spoil the original intended ideas. This lack of beliefs matches the unique concept of becoming bankrupt over time: fueled by a lack of concentrating, articulating, and teaching base belief systems.
Since people are the primary assets that move companies forward and innovate, ineffective leaders lose sight of this, regardless of their size. The impact is the commoditization of people, the reducing training/education investment, and general disregard for the people's value and worth. We see this as a significant issue in leadership overall: one of the reasons we enjoy working with small teams and companies. There can be a closer sense of connection, value, contribution, and participation in our experience. Again, this gets back to the practice that belief must be set in place effectively: people will want to walk in the doors each day and engage.
Not getting the right employee sitting on the bus in the right seat: refers to Jim Collins, "Built to Last." We have defined top employees as Aspirants and have identified some qualities we see consistent with this class of person. see Aspirant Qualities
Leaders are concentrating their focus on the current quarter while taking the eye off the long-term. While we understand this, we believe it has such a negative impact that discouragement and discontent seem to prevail in these companies. This situation is disheartening to witness.
Lack of laughter, humor, and fun inside an organization can take the breath away from progress and forward movement. We, humans, are a complicated lot and need these characteristics to experience joy and inter-relatedness.
There are unbalanced demands with the focus upon getting things done now with no let-up. The accelerator is always pressed to the floor—the rush, coupled with the concentration on the quarter, and the financial indicator produces undue stress. Progress indicators should be balanced with the long-term progress and direction: the reason for existence and being. Ineffective leaders/companies commoditization of so many characteristics and perceived un-appreciatively makes humans tick.
Overuse and dependence upon technology - a piece of paper, pencils, pens, stickies, and whiteboards can serve better. Get our heads and eyes out of the smartphones and tablets. We need to put pen to paper, have vibrant conversations with our colleagues, argue, create conflicts that result in solutions, love, and support each other in our pursuit of excellence instead of perfection (i.e., see Excellence — Choice Awareness Management). (Special Note) We suggest creating reward systems that support the established belief systems where the behaviors are acknowledged and taught. This reward system can be similar to those mentioned in the learning company concept (i.e., see http://www.amazon.com/The-Learning-Company-Sustainable-Development/dp/0077093003).
