Leadership weaknesses that destroy organizations

According to John C. Maxwell, one of the world’s leading leadership experts, leadership is everything. The importance of this is that leadership is ultimately the cause; everything else is an effect. This is because it is the responsibility of leaders to determine the end in their organizations from the beginning. Leaders man the steering wheel of their organizations’ ships, so when things go well they get the accolades, and when things go wrong they take the beatings and carry the can. Directly or indirectly, the leader determines the fate of his organization.

While a leader’s good qualities work in the company’s favor, his personal weaknesses work against the company’s best interests. Therefore, to ensure the continued success of his organization, one of the most important responsibilities of a leader is to ensure that his personal weaknesses do not become the Achilles’ heel of his organization.

To have weaknesses is human, but to rise above weaknesses is also human. The essence of weaknesses is not the destruction of man; they should serve as a reminder of our humanity. While those who give in to their weaknesses transfer the lever of control of their lives to the weaknesses, condemning themselves to a life of regret, those who are able to control their weaknesses position themselves for a life out of the ordinary.

Since it is the duty of leaders to protect the organization and the people they lead from destruction, great leaders go to great lengths to avoid weaknesses that could kill their organizations.

Here are some leadership weaknesses that can ruin organizations.

Inability to manage ego

While a leader without ego will end in disaster, the one who is selfish will lead his organization to ruin. Ego urges a leader to focus on his needs rather than those of the organization. This results in the personalization of issues. Personalization leads to a misalignment of focus, because at that point the leader is willing to sacrifice the company’s interest for personal interest. He begins to equate his personal comfort with the success of the company. Left unchecked, he begins to see himself as the company and, like Louis XIV of France, begins to see himself no longer as an officer of the organization but as the organization itself.

When a leader puts his personal interest above the corporate interest, his choice will conflict with the overall purpose of the organization he leads. When leaders give in to their own interests, they squander great opportunities to make a difference and later wonder why they can’t achieve their goals.

When a leader is able to control his ego, he can learn more and improve his leadership. A leader who is able to tame his ego will remain studious and uncritical of criticism, positioning himself to learn new things that will enable him to fulfill his mandate. According to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc, “A well-thought-out critique of whatever you do is as valuable as gold. You should seek it from everyone, but especially your friends.

However, when a leader is at the mercy of his ego, he cuts off his potential and will only be able to achieve a fraction of what he can achieve. As noted by Ryan Holiday, in the book Ego is the Enemy: “Ego is the enemy of what you want and what you have: of mastering a craft. Of real creative insight. Working well with others. From building loyalty and support. Of a long life. Of repeating and maintaining your success. It repels benefits and opportunities. It is a magnet for enemies and mistakes. They are Scylla and Charybdis.’

Ego keeps a person from functioning at their best.

Micromanagement

It was Louis V. Gerstner, former president of IBM, who said, “People don’t do what you expect, they do what you inspect.” In this way, the astute businessman who “got the American multinational technology company dancing” before leaving in 2002 recommends that managers regularly update their subordinates to ensure they stay on the same page with them about the projects they handle.

However, this has been stretched to the limit by some leaders who engage in micromanagement.

Micromanagement is a centralized form of management and its major disadvantage is that it slows down the decision-making process. Everything and everyone is waiting for the leader. Nothing is done until the manager gives his agreement and permission. It slows down the response time to the customer because the manager has to approve every action. It stifles creativity and innovation as employees are unable to express their energy and this slows down a company’s progress. The result of a series of experiments conducted by MS DeCaro, RD Thomas, NB Albert and SL Beilock, published in 2011 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology under the title Choking under pressure: Multiple routes to skill failure, shows that employees who believe that they are micromanaged underperform.

Micromanagement, the antithesis of delegation, has been described as “giving subordinates a project, but regularly checking progress, making lots of ‘helpful’ suggestions and giving them the clear impression that you can do it better and faster.”

Experts agree that micromanagement is the wrong way to lead because it deprives the leader of the opportunity to focus on what really matters.

A leader usually needs to look at the big picture and allow his subordinates to handle departmental or departmental matters. But when a manager is concerned with issues to be handled by subordinates, it indicates a lack of confidence in the competence of the subordinates.

Those who practice micromanagement are plagued by the fear that ‘everything that can go wrong will eventually go wrong’. So to prevent anything from going wrong, they take over the system to control everything and everyone.

But this conflicts with Derek Lidow’s advice in his book Startup Leadership: How Savvy Entrepreneurs Turn Their Ideas Into Successful Enterprises, where he says, “Entrepreneurial leaders foster in people a sense of personal success—the hallmark of leadership. “

So instead of continuing to believe that employees want to frustrate him, a leader should make his subordinates feel important by assigning them roles that bring out the best in them.

Lack of integrity

Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, said, “Look for three things in a person: intelligence, energy, and integrity. If they don’t have the latter, don’t even bother.”

Integrity is probably the most important quality a leader should possess. It is the anchor of all other leadership traits. Without integrity a leader cannot enjoy the trust of his followers, without integrity a leader cannot influence others, without integrity a leader cannot bind people around his vision, without integrity leadership is dead.

Integrity is holding yourself to the highest possible ethical standards. People strong in integrity are consistent; they don’t have different versions of themselves. People of integrity have their words as their bond. They stay true to themselves and others.

Integrity is crucial in leadership because leaders are models. If a leader is inconsistent, how can he model consistency? If a leader is unreliable, how can he model reliability? If a leader is not virtuous, how can he model virtue?

The fall of Hurd

Between 2005 and 2010, Mark Hurd, former HP chairman/CEO, led the company through a difficult time to prosperity. He was able to increase profits for 22 consecutive quarters while sales rose 63 percent and the stock price doubled. According to the New York Times, Hurd was able to “refocus the strife-ravaged company, leading to five years of earnings growth and a share price that rose 130 percent.”

Under Hurd’s watchful eye, HP was number one in sales of desktop and laptop computers for four years. In 2008, the company increased its market share in inkjet printers and laser printers to 46 percent and 50.5 percent, respectively.

With success came recognition. In 2007, Hurd was named one of the 25 Most Powerful People in Business by Fortune Magazine. The San Francisco Chronicle recognized Hurd as CEO of the Year in 2008, and he was named one of Forbes’ Top CEOs in 2009.

However, Hurd was forced to resign by the company’s board of directors on August 6, 2010. Jodie Fisher, a former actress who worked as a marketing consultant for HP, accused Hurd of sexual harassment. To keep her closed, Hurd settled Fisher with $20,000, which he passed on to the company as his personal expense.

While HP said in a statement after investigating the case that the company’s sexual harassment policy had not been violated, it had to relax its CEO for filing inaccurate expense reports. Meanwhile, Hurd earned a total of $24,201,448 in 2009, including base salary of $1,268,750, stock awards of $6,648,092, cash bonus of $15,809,414, and $475,192 in benefits and other benefits. He lost all of that in $20,000 sexual harassment charges.

Indecisiveness

One of the critical functions of a leader is to make decisions. Really what makes a leader is the decision he makes. The quality of a leader is determined by the quality of his decisions. A CEO of a company has to decide in which direction he wants to lead his company. He has to decide whether to introduce new products or work with the current ones. He must decide whether to expand the business beyond the country’s shores or to consolidate on the company’s local operations. The day a leader becomes indecisive, he stops leading. No matter how long he remains in office after that time, his leadership has ended. What remains is only the shadow; an undecided leader will only mark the time.

Indecisiveness is the kiss of death for a leader. Indecision cost Yukio Hatoyama his prestigious position.

In August 2009, Hatoyama led the Democratic Party of Japan to defeat the Liberal Democratic Party, which had been in power for more than a decade and was inaugurated as prime minister on September 16. He won the election promising to make drastic changes. in the country. Despite holding several important positions in the country, including being a member of the House of Representatives, before becoming Prime Minister, he repeatedly bumped into very important issues. He made decisions and reversed them, which the citizens found embarrassing. He soon gained a reputation for his indecisiveness and was under pressure to resign or face a vote of no confidence. He chose to resign and resigned on June 8, 2010. He was Prime Minister for less than 10 months, no thanks to his indecisiveness.

Loss of focus

Leaders put their organizations at risk when they lose focus. The task of a leader is made for him; grow the people, grow the business and grow shareholder value. If a leader makes these three his focus and works towards their realization, the value of the company will increase. But when a leader cares about other things, he is unable to pay attention to what matters and what begins to suffer. When a leader becomes so distracted that he pays little attention to his core functions, he seriously jeopardizes the future of the organization, the careers of its people and the investment of the shareholders.

Last line

When leaders rein in their weaknesses, they unleash the potential of their organizations.

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