17 Ways Leaders Ruin Their Teams

By Mike DuBose with Blake DuBose

 

When great teams and strong leaders come together, they can produce truly amazing results. Dedicated employees and caring supervisors work passionately toward common goals, producing high-quality goods and services and creating a culture where initiative, excellence, and honesty are rewarded. Negativity is banished, and positive attitudes prevail.

These outstanding teams, however, are much harder to build and maintain than most people think. In particular, many leaders who share a common misconception noted in Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan’s bestseller Execution: “Too many leaders fool themselves into thinking their companies are well run.” Because of this disconnect with reality, managers may fail to recognize common problems that are brewing, and many others see the problems but refuse to react. Ultimately, it’s the responsibility of the leader to set the tone for the team.

Some of the leadership mistakes that lead to subpar organizations include:

 

1. The “Peter Principle:” Essentially, this means that people advance based on their success in their current role, not their ability to perform the duties of the role to which they’re being promoted. In many organizations that are vertical in authority (power goes up and down the ladder), people strive to enter leadership positions because it’s the only way to get paid more, not necessarily because they want to lead—a recipe for disaster. They lack the know-how, skills, and often the inclination to wisely and fairly lead a team.
2. Personality weaknesses: As Tom Rath and Barrie Conchie wrote, “All too often, leaders are blind to the obvious when it comes to something of critical importance to them—their own personality.” Sydney Finkelstein echoed this in his book Why Smart Executives Fail: “Executives who run into trouble tend to rely too much on their own personal preferences that are not backed up with sufficient supporting evidence.” Although it’s hard to step outside of one’s own “box” and see things objectively, it’s a quality that all great leaders need. Poor leaders, however, are unable to see things from others’ viewpoints, or even to recognize their own faults and mistakes.
3. Negativity: Marcus Buckingham noted, “To lead effectively, you must be unfailingly, unrealistically, even irrationally optimistic. Like it or not, it is not learnable.” However, many poor leaders have a “glass half empty” worldview, and this negativity seeps into their teams. As John Miller stated, “the cultural tone has an impact on how problems get solved, the way people speak to one another, the levels of innovation and creativity, the trust between employees and management, and the risks individuals are willing to take—not to mention the ‘fun factor’ of working there.” When leaders are negative and close-minded, they lack the enthusiasm to inspire and motivate employees. Their apathy transfers to their team members, who perform at an average to subpar level. Such leaders often hold organizations back by playing it safe for fear of failing, and they see victories in other divisions as just more work (instead of good things that pay their salaries and keep the company in business). They are often rigid in sticking to their negative philosophies (a “my way or the highway” mentality). If they serve on an executive leadership team, their rigid actions or philosophies can stymie, frustrate, and paralyze other leaders who are trying to build a clear strategic plan for the future.
4. Refusal to collaborate: Bossidy noted, “People who can’t work with others reduce the capacities of their organizations. They don’t get the full benefit of their people’s talents, and they waste everybody’s time, including their own.” Poor leaders tend to avoid collaboration amongst teams and are silo-focused on their particular division. When employees and leaders from other divisions bring up a joined vision for the company, they often criticize, but cannot come up with alternative ideas. They are not concerned with the company as a whole, just the success of their own jurisdiction. Their lack of ability to see the “big picture” often prevents them from determining what things to stop doing, what they should continue doing, and what new activities to start doing in collaboration with others.
5. Excessive pride: Weak leaders have high opinions of themselves, think their ideas are always right, and want attention or credit for the team’s efforts. However, as both Jim Collins in Good to Great and John Miller in Outstanding! 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional wrote, humility is the cornerstone of great leadership. Miller noted, “Humility is a key trait of outstanding organizations—and of individuals. Humility helps people be more likeable and approachable, work better with others, and give better service to customers. It enables departments and teams to collaborate with other departments and teams.”
6. Failing to prioritize culture fit during the hiring process: Instead of ensuring that job candidates fit the culture while also having the basic skills needed to perform the task, subpar leaders let education, job history, and extraneous skills take the lead. However, the chemistry of the team should be first and foremost—after all, many skills can be taught, but culture fit can’t. These leaders often make hiring decisions without input from other staff or delay acting on great candidates so long that they are snatched up by other companies.
7. Straying from the company’s core business: Collins defines a company’s core business as its “Hedgehog Concept,” or what the company and its employees do best, know the most about, and is the most profitable to the company. Leaders who do not keep this principle in sight may end up chasing low-profit projects that staff members want to try versus what they have been trained to do best. They often try to be everything to everyone, instead of leading their team to develop high-quality products and services around a few well-planned and profitable projects that adhere to the mission and purpose.
8. Lacking a clear vision for the future: According to The Leadership Challenge, “More than 70 percent of our most recent respondents selected the ability to look ahead as one of the their most sought-after leadership traits. People expect leaders to have a sense of direction and a concern for the future of the organization.” Indeed, without looking toward the future, leaders cannot paint a clear picture for employees to see, follow, or buy into. However, it’s not enough to just have some vague ideas on future strategies. You also need concrete steps to get there. As Bossidy recounted in his book Execution, “I saw that leaders placed too much emphasis on what some call high-level strategy, on intellectualizing and philosophizing, and not enough on implementation.” Staff under weak leaders may agree with their concepts in theory, but then nothing comes of them. Miller reported that “purpose powers passion. The organization’s mission can excite people, giving them fuel, if you will, to do their jobs each day. It helps them feel like they are part of something larger than themselves…We need to infuse our mission into everything we do—and doing so is not a one-time job.” Strategy defines companies and gives them a purpose for existing. Finkelstein noted, “Strategy is just as much about what you decide not to do as it is what you do. If you try to do everything, then you don’t really have much of a strategy…Not all strategies are created equal. Strategies should be based on real internal competence that customers value enough to pay for and that competitors cannot easily replicate.”
9. Failing to define clear expectations for their staff: Buckingham noted that one basic skill of good management is to clearly define expectations of your staff and team, laying out these expectations from the first date of hiring. Then, he said, “They continue to clarify expectations in virtually every meeting, every conversation, every presentation. Every time they talk with one of their people they see it as an opportunity to make expectations just that little bit clearer.” However, this is often not the case, according to Ken Blanchard. In The One Minute Manager, Blanchard noted that “most managers know what they want their people to do. They just don’t bother to tell their people in a way they would understand. They assume they should know.” When the leader does not define expectations, employees are left to create their own with no guidance on what they should actually be doing. Often, when expectations are not defined, leaders go from hiring a person to firing them with nothing in between.
10. Avoiding productive confrontations: Poor leaders avoid conflict, even to the detriment of their organizations. They resist counseling faltering staff members to improve, and they don’t try to understand their strengths and place them in positions where they can thrive. A weak leader often complains about their subordinates’ lack of productivity, but cannot confront underperformers. As a result they ask for more and more workers and financial resources to make up for the people who can’t or won’t deliver. Miller suggested that “people shouldn’t waste time asking questions like, ‘When are we going to get more tools?’ but instead ask, ‘What can I do to succeed with the resources I have?’”
11. Being a poor teacher: Unsatisfactory leaders do not spend time with their employees to coach and mentor them. According to some researchers, these leaders spend less than 3% of their time guiding the team and individuals to bond, collaborate, and build the high-quality products and services that result in customer accolades. Because they do not know how to manage and lead, they bog themselves down into the details of projects where they feel competent and satisfied, but their staff is left to figure things out on their own.
12. Celebrations never happen when they or others win: Weak leaders see their work as just that—not an adventure, a purpose, or a satisfying journey! When they do win, therefore, they aren’t excited and don’t care about celebrating their victories. However, as I learned from Jack Welch, “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” When you don’t win, people lose jobs, companies decline and eventually fail, and staff members leave for better cultures where winning is valued. Only winning allows us to keep our jobs, bonds, and company culture intact!
13. Inability to adapt to changing circumstances: As Bossidy noted, “many organizations are full of people who are trying to avoid or shade reality.” He recommended that any leader be able to summarize their vision into a clear 20-minute presentation, however, weak leaders tend to hide behind jargon rather than create a clear, concise plan for the future. Then, when circumstances change, they scramble to adapt (and sometimes fail). Likewise, after studying 51 companies, Finkelstein found four major characteristics that usually preceded business failure: (1) flawed executive mindsets that throw off a company’s perception of reality; (2) delusional attitudes that keep this inaccurate reality in place; (3) breakdowns in communications systems developed to handle potentially urgent information; and (4) leadership qualities that keep a company’s executives from correcting course.
14. Failing to hold staff accountable for meeting performance standards: According to The Leadership Challenge, “Research indicates clearly that measurement and feedback are essential to increase efforts to improve performance.” Unsatisfactory leaders not only fail to provide their staffs with the appropriate feedback, but may also reward those who don’t perform well while ignoring those who do. Bossidy noted that “many corporations do such a poor job of linking rewards to performance that there’s little correlation at all…You have to make it clear to everyone that rewards and respect are based on performance.” This often comes from the leaders’ desire to avoid confronting members of their teams who are not meeting company performance standards. “Failure to deal with underperformers is an extremely common problem in corporations, and it’s usually the result of the leader’s emotional blockages,” Bossidy said. In addition to setting rigorous standards, he enacted a process as a senior leader at General Electric and Honeywell to promote positive employee behaviors: “First, you tell people clearly what results you’re looking for. Then you discuss how to get those results, as a key element of the coaching process. Then you reward people for producing the results. If they come up short, you provide additional coaching, withdraw rewards, give them other jobs, or let them go.” Jack Welch advised that a company should let its bottom 10% (the poor performers) go on an annual basis and reward the top performers. Bossidy concluded, “Most people know someone in their organization who doesn’t perform well, yet manages to keep his job year after year. The usual reason, we find, is that the person’s leader doesn’t have the emotional fortitude to confront him and take decisive action. Such failures can do considerable damage to a business. If the nonperformer is high enough in the organization, he can destroy it.” When the wrong people are rewarded, the whole organization loses.
15. Not caring about their people: Weak leaders do not build relationships with their staffs. They see them as widgets that generate profit rather than human beings. However, research has clearly documented that there is a strong connection between a caring leader and an employee’s productivity. Employees who know their leaders don’t care about them are less likely to go the extra mile to help the leader—and the company—succeed.
16. Letting the budget run wild: While teams may occasionally take on some low-profit or charitable activities that are enriching or fun, nearly everything that a business does must be purpose- and mission-driven and tied to its financial health. Leaders must determine the resources needed to deliver an excellent job and then set annual financial targets to support staff and the related expenses. Many weak managers simply cannot develop a logic model for generating revenue or justifying receiving resources like new staff. They simply keep asking for more employees and supplies without providing the facts to support their requests.
17. Hoping for the best without preparing for the worst: Optimism is great, but every good leader must also be ready to face the worst if it unexpectedly occurs. Bill Gates once mentioned that one of the killers of success is success itself. Leaders and teams who become complacent and believe they will always be successful are destined to fail because they stop adapting to meet shifting markets and needs.

 

The bottom line: The key to building a profitable and successful organization that can thrive even in the worst of times lies in great leaders and highly-productive teams. Leaders are responsible not only for overseeing the day-to-day operations of a business, but also for inspiring their staffs and creating cultures that make greatness possible. When they succeed, the results can be magical—but if they fail, they can send their teams (and ultimately the business) into a downward spiral!

 

To read an extended version of this article that also covers the characteristics of great teams and strong leaders, please visit www.mikedubose.com/teams.

 

About the Authors: Our corporate and personal purpose is to “create opportunities to improve lives” by sharing our knowledge, research, experiences, successes, and mistakes. You can e-mail us at [email protected].

 

Mike DuBose, a University of South Carolina graduate, is the author of The Art of Building a Great Business. He has been in business since 1981 and is the owner of Columbia Conference Center, Research Associates, The Evaluation Group, and DuBose Fitness Center. Visit his nonprofit website www.mikedubose.com for a free copy of his book and additional business, travel, health, and personal published articles.

 

Blake DuBose graduated from Newberry College’s Schools of Business and Psychology and is president of DuBose Web Group (www.duboseweb.com).

Katie Beck serves as Director of Communications for the DuBose family of companies. She graduated from the USC School of Journalism and Honors College.

 

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