Episode #543: Common Leadership Shortcomings We Need To Avoid In Japan

As leaders are we all perfect? Are we perfect all the time? Obviously, the answer is “no” to both counts, but that doesn’t mean we always face up to our own shortcomings. An important part of growing and improving as a leader is to be honest about who we really are. Let’s go through some common areas where leaders can improve.

1. Uninspiring
This uninspiring tag covers a vast majority of leaders. Ask yourself, “how many of my previous bosses would I describe as inspiring?” The answer for most people is usually none or one. Now ask yourself, “if someone surveyed my team members, how many would say I was inspiring?” This type of reality check is useful because it can help us become better in some key leadership areas. What contributes to a leader being seen as uninspiring? It usually relates to a lack of enthusiasm, someone going through the motions with no great passion. This is reflected in how they communicate. The voice is dull, the energy low, the fire in the belly has long since smoldered out. As a consequence, they lack direction for themselves and therefore cannot provide it for the team. They are not leading an intentional life for themselves.

Leaders are not robots and we go through our ups and downs in business. An important part of what we do is to provide electricity for our people. That spark inside us ignites a spark in them. If our spark has been eclipsed, then we need to reignite it. That means finding meaning in what we do. It means going back to the basics of what we do as a leader and rediscover the fundamentals of our role and why we are here. If we cannot manage that, we won’t be around for very long as the organisation soon realizes we are not providing any particular value to the firm. Find some aspect of the work which provides enjoyment. Start there and try to build on that scope to include more tasks and gradually rebuild your enthusiasm for being the leader.

2. Over-Focused On Self
It would be a hard task to find anyone who isn’t overly focused on themselves in this modern business world of sudden layoffs, deadly mergers and bankruptcies. Leaders are not immune to these fears. Self-preservation gets more intense as you climb up the greasy pole and start costing the firm more dough. Recently. a friend of mine here at a prestigious financial firm was asked to leave because his subordinate, who he developed, would take over as his bosses could save money this way. So much for his long loyalty to the company and no wonder we become cynical.

Over-focus in this context though means not being concerned about the people under you and just looking out for yourself. Actually, we can do both. Notwithstanding my friends recent unfortunate collision with boss greed, we can protect ourselves and develop our team. They are not mutually exclusive objectives. Over-focus on us means not delegating tasks so that others can develop their career path. They need to impress an interview panel that they can step up and do the job because they have some valuable experience in relevant parts of it.

Delegation is not dumping one’s work on to others. It is growing the people under you. We have to stop saying things like “it will be quicker if I do it myself”. Instead, we have to devote some of our highly valuable time to developing others to have them learn the tasks.

3. Not Accountable
Perfhaps we are an avid resister of feedback. We literally trash the 360-degree feedback because it is painful to read what others think about us, when they have the chance to freely express their views in a way which cannot be traced back to them individually. Of course, we can all improve and even if the comments are “wrong” from our point of view, we accept that there is that perception of us. We can work on improving that perception.

If we ignore it, then retribution isn’t far away. Before you know it, your boss and the HR department are all over you demanding changes anyway. So why not be the arbiter of our own adjustments and start work on fixing the perceptions though improved communication and deleting behaviours which others find irritating or unacceptable.

Another aspect of lack of accountability is to cut yourself some slack, but be uber demanding of your team. You take a two-hour lunch or head off to the gym during the workday, but hammer your people about their lack of results. Remember staff are all card-carrying boss watchers and they see what is going on. Having double standards will never fly because there is no consistency in that approach. People under us like consistency and they dislike unpredictability.

Also, don’t apply your standards of today against someone younger and less experienced. Compare them to what you were like at their age and stage. The contrast can be very revealing. When we do this, it helps to adjust how we approach them regarding the quality of their work. We don’t have ridiculous expectations or standards which we could never have achieved in their place.

None of these shortcomings are beyond repair. We need to face the reality first and then work out a plan to improve on them. If we don’t want to fix them, then someone above us will fix it by removing us. That is avoidable if we choose to be someone who votes for leading an intentional life. That angle makes such a difference in how we feel about what we are doing, such that improvements can come thick and fast.