Your Leadership Sucks - Here’s Why…

Ever finish a delicious salad, head to your next meeting, and wonder why everyone is gripped by what you have to say? Every eye hangs on every word - you think you are dropping gems - they are just waiting for your lunch to come flying across the table. It’s not until you get into your car and check yourself in your review mirror that you realize you’ve got 1/2 a wedge of romaine in your face. Why didn’t anyone say anything?! What if that flew across the table and landed on someone?! How embarrassing. It’s a wild example, but it holds much of what we would want if we had a publicly embarrassing moment shaping out - someone to tell us so we can do something about it. So, in that spirit, I want to let some of my fellow leaders know - “there’s something in your teeth.”

When I think about the current state of leadership, I’m struck by the lack of overall awareness, care, and empathy many leaders bring to the calling (not using that hyperbolically) of leadership. We’re smart people; we’re well-read, and we know that some studies show that employees don’t leave jobs - they leave leaders. Yet many leaders fail to do what’s necessary to retain strong team members and shape a culture where staff can belong and succeed. If you’re feeling flush while your read this - embrace it because your leadership sucks. Here’s why:

You lack the trust of your team(s): There’s a great book called The Thin Book of Trust, written by Charles Feltman. In his book, Mr. Feltman offers that trust comprises four essential elements: Care, Sincerity, Reliability, and Competence. He proposes that healthy trust cannot be shared between parties if these elements are lacking. If your teams don’t believe you care, believe what you say, can count on you to come through, or doubt your technical ability to get something done, it will be hard for them to trust you. Without their trust, they will hedge every situation involving you and your leadership. They will spend more time thinking about how to survive you than working with you to achieve. They will never let you know that you’ve got something in your teeth - it’s too risky, and you may not believe them.

You lack accountability: There was a season where I used the word accountability a lot. It wasn't easy to understand collectively because we all bring our notions to the word. I want to offer you a framing of accountability a friend shared. She told me that we are accountable to one another when we’re in a real relationship, and the outcomes of our interactions are focused on the healthy maintenance of that relationship. Wow. So transparent, so accessible. I think leaders can sometimes see themselves as outside of the relationship and on an island all their own. Leadership can be lonely; there are things you can’t share with everyone all the time. You have a lot to manage internally and externally and are responsible for the good and the bad. This reality oftentimes creates a chasm between the leader and their teams. I think leaders have to be willing and able to open a bit of that space to others to build meaningful relationships.

You act on your insecurity: We’ve all been there. Call it imposter syndrome, self-doubt, fear- if we're honest, it happens to us all. Left unchecked, our insecurity becomes a throughput for finding our value in unhealthy ways. When you become the stopgap for every initiative, the only expert in the room, the proven authority on all things all things - you’ve got a problem on your hands, leader friend. The strongest stance a leader struggling with insecurity can have is curiosity. Allow curiosity to drive how you relate to others. It will not only help you learn more about the abilities and insights of others but also be seen as a multiplier of efforts, and you are open to the input of your teams. That’s leadership.

Your job is your identity: There’s nothing more defacing to your leadership than the glee of reminding others that you’re in charge. Yet, many bad leaders resort to this tactic as they berate others for the offense of having their thoughts and acting in the interest of their scope of work and the business. Perhaps it’s not the boss call out; identity can be shaped through activity, and if you’re the boss that, regardless of the wealth of information we have about the reusing stress and loneliness at work, sends out 2am emails to staff on the weekend because you’ve got nothing better to do than work.

You don’t seek feedback: When’s the last time you made space to ask your team if there’s anything you can do or stop doing to help them move their work forward? When did you last engage in a 360 review of your leadership and work style? When was the last time you shared your open-door policy with staff? Sucky leaders are afraid to hear what others might say out of fear that they may have to change their work and style. See the paragraph on accountability.

There’s hope. You can make changes if you fit into two or more of these buckets. I know because I was a sucky leader. As a young corporal in the US Army, I made it all about me, my pursuits, and my power. It wasn’t until I had a significant setback and had healthy leadership modeled to me by a younger, seemingly less-experienced troop that I realized there was another way. There’s another stance. There’s another mindset. That’s why I love coaching. I get the chance to work with leaders on reshaping their approach to their leadership. There is hope out there.

Lead Better