Five BAD Leadership Habits to Stop Doing Immediately

There are plenty of articles out there on what good leaders should do, but I don’t see as many articles on bad leadership. Because there are plenty of bad leaders who, at the very least, are ineffective and make no impact.

But at worst, they drag their organization down into the toilet because they lack the self-awareness to realize they’re the problem. So they refuse to go away when the best thing for the organization is that they’re removed. As a leader yourself, you may fall victim to these bad leadership habits, or your own managers and supervisors may do it as well.

Here are five bad leadership habits that you need to break — or put a stop to — immediately.

1. Isolating Yourself

Leaders, once they’ve had a taste of their own success and they start to believe their own press, will often spend less time with the people they’re supposed to lead and more time meeting with their managers and other leaders.

When that happens, and your leader starts isolating themselves, get rid of them. People who spend more time in their office and no time talking to customers or their own people are not effective.

Visibly unengaged people are not leaders.

2. Not Engaging in Implementations

It becomes very obvious when a leader is not engaged and invisible during the implementation of any new changes or programs.

Let’s say you want to change your company’s major computer systems. You arrange for people to come in and train everyone and get them up to speed on the new system.

But then you see that your supervisors and managers are not part of the training. They’re not showing up, they’re skipping training, and they’re never quite sure how the new software works.

If these leaders are not fully engaged in the implementation, their own people will outstrip them and lose any form of respect for them.

Years ago, when I was in the lighting industry, I had a manager who was there for 12 months, and he couldn’t remember a single part number. He never even bothered learning the most common ones. So after one year, he got a nice anniversary gift: a severance payment.

I’ve seen this disengagement happen with new system implementations and the problems it caused. So I’ve always contracted with the vendor that they had to all do 1:1 training. Part of that commission was that they had to administer a test to gauge the competency of the individual. That way, it was very easy to see who the malingerers were, and I knew what steps I needed to take to fix the problem.

3. Think They Know Everything

Shouting at your staff because you think you know everything is a sign of bad leadership.I’ve talked before about leaders who assume they always have the right answer and that their way is the only way to do things.

That’s the characteristic of a dumb leader. They work on the “because I’m the boss, that’s why” management principle. And when they’re challenged on that, they come up with some rather inane response to enforce their will, rather than offer proof and support for their decision.

And they will certainly never ask for input from their teams, even though their team members are supposed to be smarter and more knowledgeable about the topic than they are.

This is the quickest way to lose credibility with your staff.

After all, if you know more about a subject or job than the person doing it, then why are you even a manager? You should still be in that position. Otherwise, you absolutely need people who know more than you in those roles. They’re the ones who make you look like a genius.

4. Skipping Work

I’m a big believer in people working in the office, and that includes the managers.

A lot of times, a manager will make an excuse to go to a golf tournament or to have a golf “meeting” with a big customer or vendor, and they’ll leave the associates alone to fend for themselves.

It’s OK to do that once in a while — sometimes there are meetings and people you just can’t say “no” to. But when it becomes a regular habit, you have a problem. When you spend every Friday on the links having “meetings,” you’re still disengaged and isolated.

5. Not Making Sacrifices

Like it or not, being a leader means you have to make sacrifices once in a while, like missing your kid’s t-ball practice. I realize that we all want to have that work-life balance and that we will always be there for our kids in ways that our parents never were.

But there are times when you’ll need people to work overtime, put in some extra work, and stay later or come in earlier. And you can’t ask people to do that if you’re not willing to do that yourself.

So, while I’m not saying you have to miss every Little League game or recital, I am saying that there will be times that you need to make a sacrifice and miss a life event once in a while. If people know that you’re willing to make a sacrifice in your own life, they’ll be more willing to accept making the same sacrifices.

And if you’re not willing to do it yourself, then never expect others to do it for you.

I’ve been a manufacturing executive, as well as a sales and marketing professional, for a few decades. Now, I help companies turn around their own business, including pivoting within their industry. If you would like more information, please visit my website and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Photo credit: Andrea Piacquadio (Pexels, Creative Commons 0)



Author: David Marshall
I’ve been a manufacturing executive, as well as a sales and marketing professional, for a few decades. Now I help companies turn around their own business. If you would like more information, please visit my website and connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn.