Leadership Mistakes That Sabotage Your Success

by Kathy Ryan,
Pinnacle Coaching Group

So many good business leaders today sabotage their own success without even knowing it. At a time when you should be showing that you are indispensable to your organization, leaders are allowing negative attitudes and behaviors to detract from their effectiveness. It’s time to stop damaging your career and to start investing in your own success!

Here are three catastrophic mistakes leaders make that sabotage their success and how to avoid them:

Kathy Ryan WOAMTEC's Celebration Chapter Director

1. Being Arrogant- No one wants to work for a leader who is arrogant. You cannot be an effective leader, if you don’t respect others or believe that you are better than the people working for you. Adopting a “don’t question me” attitude is a sure path to failure. Cultivating the quality of humility will allow you to remain open to feedback and to take responsibility for your actions, even when you have made a mistake. Your willingness to admit your imperfections to your staff will actually bring you closer to them. The truth is; they already know you are not perfect.

 

2. Over Promising and Under Delivering- There is no quicker way to undermine the relationship you have with your team than failing to follow through on your commitments.Most of the time leaders who fall into this trap genuinely mean well when they make a promise, but factors such as poor time management, lack of personal discipline or overall disorganization leave them falling short. In the end it doesn’t matter that you meant well, the message you give your employees is that you don’t care about them. Actually, you should “Under Promise and Over Deliver”, so you make sure that you deliver on every promise you make. If you have any hesitation at all about your ability to do so, do not make the commitment.

 

3. Becoming Stagnant- Many leaders believe that once they get the title, they no longer have to put effort into growing their skills. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is essential in today’s business environment that you continue to increase your knowledge and skills. A team can only go as high as the skill level of the leader. If you stop growing and learning, you will not only eventually stall the forward momentum of your team, but you will find that team members who are making their personal growth a priority are passing you by. Make learning a life-long endeavor. Not only will you reap the rewards, but those you lead and mentor along the way will benefit as well.

Even the most experienced leader has probably either made some of these mistakes or seen them undermine someone else’s success.The good news is that now that you are aware of them, you can correct your behavior immediately or avoid falling into any of these traps entirely, which will put you well on your way to becoming a leader worth following.