9 Things Terrible Leaders Do and How to Avoid Them

If you want to motivate and inspire your team, best to avoid these leadership pitfalls.

“You should hate each other for having let each other down.” — exclaimed the CEO of a company when addressing the team responsible for a failed product launch.

Shortly after his tirade, he fires the leader of the team and replaces him on the spot.

The CEO was Steve Jobs, and the product was MobileMe.

When reflecting on that infamous meeting, an ex-Apple employee considers it to be “the world’s best de-motivational speech”.

Although Steve Jobs and Apple continues to be one of the greatest success stories, it was not due to his leadership skills. Steve’s erratic and unreasonable behaviour put a damper on his team’s culture as highlighted by many ex-employees. If it wasn’t for his extraordinary vision and innovation, Apple could have quite easily been just another gravestone in the business world. Steve’s story is a rare one, poor people-skills in a leadership position more often leads to the demise of the company and the individual’s reputation.

To avoid such a fatal fate, I’ve compiled a list of 9 things that I’ve noticed terrible leaders do and provided alternatives to the outlook and beliefs that may cause the behaviour in case you may find yourself exhibiting the same traits.

They’re impatient

It’s unreasonable to expect your team to get it right every single time in the first instance. There are many very legitimate causes for delays, such as inexperience, misunderstandings and miscommunication. It’s best to take every moment as an opportunity to help grow your team into the independent and highly skilled group of people they have the potential to become.

If you are focusing on just the output, you’ll miss the opportunities to grow skill and independency.

Instead, the best leaders focus on outcome — delays are completely fine if it means your team gets the space and time to learn something new and become a little bit more independent and knowledgeable for the future. Over time, the speed and quality of their output will naturally improve with less input from you.

They love attention

The best leaders have the ability to motivate and encourage their team, and there’s nothing more de-motivating than a leader that continually steals the spotlight. Leaders that lack confidence continually need to be re-assured of their ability and impact, so they take their team’s wins as if it were their own and soak up the praise.

Leaders who are confident in their worth do not feel the need to keep a tally of their wins and are more than happy to step aside and let their team take centre-stage. Moreover, the best leaders know that recognition and appreciation are the greatest motivators. They always look for wins to celebrate and give their team the attention and praise they deserve.

They’re sensitive

Being sensitive about your opinions and suggestions is a quick way to stifle collaboration. Leaders who cannot take push-back or opposing opinions well end up creating an echo chamber of their own thoughts and ideas. Eventually, innovation is crushed as everyone in the team end up becoming yes-men (or yes-women).

The best way to avoid becoming too protective of your own ideas is to not let your ideas become your identity.

Reacting negatively to other people commenting on your suggestions tend to occur when you see your ideas as a representation of your ability and knowledge. This is definitely not the case, and it’s best to change that view entirely; once you do you will not only become an open and collaborative leader, you will also build the ability to help others mature their own ideas through open communication and feedback.

They can’t make decisions

If you struggle to make hard decisions and tend to sit on the fence, then I’m sorry to say that you will find it difficult to lead a team. Effective leaders know what considerations are required to make an informed decision given the situation or problem at hand. Knowing exactly what factors should be considered allows them to make quick decisions in seemingly ambiguous scenarios. This allows them to keep the team on track even in new territories.

Having an indecisive leader at the helm will only cause the team to waste time on the wrong path or worse, make no progress or miss the end goal entirely.

If you do find yourself in a scenario where the right path is not clear, knowing the considerations you need to take into account will help you determine the next steps for the team. Often, not having a clear path is only due to a lack of information; in which case, steps need to be taken to get that information and keep the team on the right track.

They are driven by emotion

As hinted to by the previous point, decisions should be driven by information and should be evidence-based. Although the best leaders know how and when to utilise emotion, emotions have no place in decision making (most of the time).

Decisions based on emotion have a risk of being short-sighted.

The most common emotion-based decisions that occur are the following:

• Aiming for a quick win even if it does not align with long-term goals or create long-term issues.
• Cutting corners to meet a deadline even if it causes more work and potential issues in the future.
• Following a certain path because it is the “biggest hype” right now.
• Setting KPIs that look good on paper but do not help contribute to achieving your long-term goal.
• Choosing to go for a solution or action item because it was put forward by you, your boss/higher up, or a friend.

The exceptions are decisions where the outcome has a social impact; in which case emotions should be used as a form of morale compass. Effective leaders know that to motivate a team, their vision and end goal should not conflict with their team’s beliefs (more on this in a later section).

They lack empathy

Unreasonable leaders tend to be that way because they assume that everyone else sees the world as they do and should have the same capabilities as they have. What they fail to understand is that everyone has travelled their own path, built their own set of skills, and grown their own outlook and opinions. Their lack of empathy causes them to assume that their method of teaching and communication suits everyone, they think that everyone should have the same goals and motivators as they do, and they believe that everyone should execute a task the exact same way as they would. So when things don’t pan out exactly as they expected, they respond in bewilderment and assume that it’s because the team is just not as capable as they are.

The easiest way to grow empathy is to ask questions and listen.

Over time you will start to learn the experiences, knowledge and beliefs that the other person has developed. A deep knowledge of how someone else “ticks” will allow you to determine the best communication style and method of teaching that suits them. You’ll learn their goals which will in turn help you motivate and inspire them to put forth their best work.

They don’t invest enough time in their team

Many leaders are time-poor, which causes them to allocate work to their team with very little explanation and support. Even worse, their busy schedule causes them to neglect their team entirely and go weeks on end without any proper check-ins.

Your team won’t reach their potential if they don’t get enough mentorship from their leaders and your team’s culture will rot if you’re not spending the time to have 1:1's.

You will only be able to give your team the time they need if you make it a habit to do so. Carve out some time in your calendar for regular meetings with your team and treat mentorship and training as a high priority task in your daily work.

They’re afraid to be vulnerable

Some see vulnerability as a sign of weakness when in actual fact it’s definitely a strength and the best leaders know that.

Vulnerability manifests in many different ways and results in the following outcomes:

• They admit gaps in their knowledge so that their team can help fill it in and form a more informed decision.
• They share stories of failure so that their team aren’t afraid to fail themselves and learn to take risks.
• They own up to their mistakes so that the team can learn and grow from them.
• They continue to ask questions to encourage others to do so as well.
• They aren’t afraid to be proven wrong since they know it helps the team grow.

They‘re guarded

Many struggle to speak authentically about their own goals and aspirations as it requires tearing down some walls; but those people fail to include one key ingredient that’s required to inspire other people.

Great leaders know how to influence and motivate others, and they do so by sharing their “why”. That level of authenticity and vulnerability is how connections are made, speaking openly about your own goals also encourages others to tune into their own aspirations. When a leader communicates a mission and vision that aligns with their team’s own personal beliefs and aspirations, very little else is required to motivate them into action.

The most successful companies are built from having a unified goal that the entire team feels so strongly about that they show up every day until that goal is met. The only person that is capable of creating and maintaining such a unified vision is the leader at the helm.

Final Thoughts

Great leaders know they are nothing without their team, so they focus their time and energy on helping their people reach their potential. Once you have a group of highly skilled and driven people, all you need to do is steer that talent in the right direction and help tear down blockers along the way. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing a team under your leadership grow and achieve great things, and the best way to get to that stage is to take yourself out of the equation and focus on providing your team with the time, support, and guidance they need.