The Five Weakest Areas Of Less Successful Leaders
The five weakest areas of the less successful leaders are that they fail to be sensitive to people’s feelings; fail to recognise other people’s stress; fail to develop and guide their staff; fail to encourage feedback on their own performance, and fail to consult those affected before making decisions.
The top 100 leaders identified in a recent study were also more critical of their shortcomings and displayed more humility than the bottom 100, who tended to have an inflated sense of their own abilities.
The report concluded : “What is clear is that the most admired leaders are highly skilled in the ‘modern’ areas of leadership, but importantly they are also able to set tough standards and achieve results. Observers want leaders to combine ethical and inspirational behaviour with the ability to take tough business decisions”.
By identifying the highest competency as “dealing effectively with breaches of behaviour” observers are essentially saying that leaders should be decisive in tackling poor performance, “Modern leadership can no longer be regarded as a soft option. This research shows that it is integrity, honesty and decisive action that marks out the truly successful leaders. Their followers have no problem equating ethics and discipline and neither should we. Leaders in all fields – from business to sport to politics – cannot escape the need to adapt to this new ‘firm but fair’ style of leadership; not if they want to remain at the top”.
Have a great weekend - JF
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POSTED IN: Leadership Skills
2 opinions for The Five Weakest Areas Of Less Successful Leaders
Wally Bock
Jul 8, 2007 at 9:00 am
That research resonates with my own research and experience. There’s a lot written on things like “motivation” and “leadership” without much description of what those things actually are or how to do them. The day-to-day work of supervision has a lot to do with making the work environment safe and congenial and that, in turn, involves setting clear and reasonable expectations and enforcing standards.
Mike Chitty
Jul 11, 2007 at 7:34 am
This chimes with me too! Can you let me have a reference for the research please?
I have a slightly different take on the issue of managers enforcing standards. Even when managers do nothing they are enforcing a standard. For example if I rush a report and do a poor job - yet my manager does not pick up on this and communicate it back to me - he has enforced the standard - that ‘rushed reports are OK’.
Once managers are aware that everything they say and do - and everything they fail to give feedback about reinforces a standard I find they become a bit more diligent about their role.
The failure to observe and communicate probably does more damage to organisational performance than botched and insensitive efforts to give feedback.
The ‘Laissez Faire’ or ‘management by exception’ school where managers only intervene when things go wrong has caused a significant deterioration in relationships between managers and reports as it puts such a bias on the negative - when the bulk of what happens in organisations is overwhelmingly positive.
In my experience the skill issue in good management is relatively minor compared to the will issue. The basics can be easily learned. However, managers have to really want to put in the hours to use these skills to develop their team using feedback, coaching and delegation all based on a trusting and respectful relationship.
Many managers that I meet are actually addicted to the ‘thrill of the crisis’ and enjoy their role in keeping the show on the road - in spite of the deficiencies of their team. They complain about too much work and not enough time, lack of commitment and motivation - but find it impossible to move from ‘fire fighting’ to a more developmental management role.
And a final rant! I get mad when I see so many organisations with appalling management standards looking to improve performance through programmes and initiatives such as 6 sigma, balanced scorecard, EFQM etc. There is nothing wrong with any of these models. They can help to make good management better. But if the management team is weak then they are at best expensively benign.
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