Tweet this: what are the Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders?

Insanely poor leadership is in the news again. I thought we were beyond this? Seems not. Some people need a reminder.

Exactly 15 years ago during a leadership programme I was running at London Business School someone suggested business school courses were a waste of time. Shouldn’t executives simply model the style of inspirational leaders, they said. People like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa – or better still Jack Welch. (Elon Musk hadn’t been invented then.)

Let’s get this straight once and for all. To become better leaders we should NOT copy the same old handful of inspirational leaders. And especially not Jack Welch, Steve Jobs or whichever CEO is the current darling of Harvard Business Review.??

Don’t get me wrong – these folks can be inspiring – sometimes. It’s just that I believe we can learn far more, and far more quickly, from assessing the damage done by really useless leaders.

So let me summarise for you the Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders from our bestselling book published exactly 15 years ago. Because these things seem to occur over and over again – and they all have a direct, DOWNWARDS impact on the bottom line.?

The Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders

Really Useless Leaders...

1) Kill enthusiasm

2) Kill emotion

3) Kill engagement

4) Kill explanation

5) Kill rewards

6) Kill culture

7) Kill trust.

Now I didn't make these failings up out of my head. These are the issues that crop up over and over again in the management research and over and over again in real-world management practice.

And it occurs to me that instead of constantly failing as leaders, if we can instead kill the Seven Failings, then productivity, performance and profitability will inevitably increase.

In other words let’s stop demotivating people. And by doing less damage as leaders we can achieve far more.

Joke’s over

Despite the light-hearted approach, smart managers will of course get the message – that inspirational leadership is about a number of key issues:

1) building on the natural enthusiasm of people in the team (intrinsic motivation)

2) empathising with people and especially at the critical moments in their business career when they most need support (emotional intelligence)

3) focusing on the team, and on the team’s objectives, ensuring that the team has as much input into those objectives as possible (goal theory)

4) consistently communicating the vision and strategy for the business and where people fit in (dialogue)

5) enticing people to perform well, with the right rewards for the right person in the right role (extrinsic motivation)

6) being sensitive to culture or the work climate (organisational culture)

7) and finally that it’s about being scrupulously fair and constantly building trust within the team (procedural justice).

Cutting to the chase, you’ll see that inspirational leadership is fundamentally about enthusiasm, empathy and energy.

And if you focus your enthusiasm, empathy and energy relentlessly on your people, their performance, productivity and profitability will inevitably increase.

In other words, as leaders we’ll be able to achieve far more by doing fewer of the utterly dumb things that destroy value.

This shouldn’t be necessary

It shouldn’t be necessary, but perhaps it’s time to issue another edition of our bestseller The Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders. What do you think?