I’ve seen it so many times. Most likely you have also. Dangerous leadership practices. A leader can be doing everything else right and one flawed practice overshadows and jeopardizes all the good leadership principles we know.
One constantly repeated action, trait, habit, mindset – one practice.
Sadly, many times it’s not even the person isn’t a good leader – it’s one continued practice gets them off track. So, I believe leaders should constantly be working on bad practices, which keep them from being as successful as they can be.
Here are 7 dangerous leadership practices I’ve observed:
(In full disclosure, I’ve been guilty of some of these – sometimes for a season – sometimes until someone helped me discover I had a poor leadership practice. I can even know better and yet I allowed it to continue too long.)
Allowing small details to overwhelm a view of the big picture.
There will always be details, which have to be handled. Yet, the smaller a leader is forced to think, the less he or she can focus on the larger vision ahead.
I can get bogged down in minutia which wastes my energy and drains me. Sometimes it’s a systems problem that requires too much of my time and sometimes it’s a failure to delegate.
Ironically, I have found that when I’m free from the responsibility of handling as many details, I’m more likely to notice the smaller things which do need my attention.
Always seeing the glass as half-empty.
A consistently negative leader will seldom find success long-term, simply because people will not care to follow.
Some people have a negative view all the time and about everything (and I don’t personally think leadership is their thing). Practicing this mindset can also last for a season – especially when there are numerous setbacks around us either in our personal life or where we lead. It could also occur in times of fast change, when the complainers seem to outnumber those offering compliments.
