Leadership is almost always the single point of failure in any enterprise. That failure can be traced to 5 specific challenges.
In twenty years of coaching leaders at all level, from CEO’s to frontline Managers, we have found all of them struggle with at least one of these….
1. LACK OF AWARENESS
Poor self-awareness has been discussed a lot. A leader who doesn’t fully grasp their own strengths and weaknesses. Someone whose view of their own ability is not matched by how others view them and as a consequence does not understand the impact their leadership behaviour has on others.
A second dimension is team awareness. This is a leader’s capacity to truly understand their team’s strengths and weaknesses and their unique behavioral characteristics. It includes a strong grasp of how to get the very best out of each individual team member and how to build a cohesive team.
An interesting observation - Leaders who struggle with poor awareness are often not clear in their own mind what they stand for. As a result, it is not clear to the team what is expected. Invariably leaders like this will act randomly, be totally inconsistent and in the process drive their team nuts. More on this in our next Blog (“what do you stand for”).
2. POOR OR BROKEN WORKING RELATIONSHIPS
It won’t be a surprise to anyone to that the quality of working relationships a leader can establish will pretty much determine their success and failure. In the first instance this is with their team, but sometimes leaders forget it also includes their ability to develop strong bonds with their peers and more importantly their boss. Leaders who struggle with this normally do so for one of two reasons
First, some leaders will prioritize results over relationships. They just do not see the significance of establishing strong working relationships. Yes, they might pay it lip service, but they will always revert to numbers and strategy first, down-playing the significance of team cohesion.
A second and perhaps more common reason, is the simple unwillingness to address relationship issues they already know exist. In short rather than address the problem they prefer to accept it and deal with the fall out. As a result, the team and their performance operates with the handbrake on. Lots of energy & noise…not much motion.
3. ALIGNMENT DEFICIENCY
Leaders that suffer from alignment deficiency have failed to answer four questions with absolute clarity.
1. Why? (Why do we exist? What is our purpose?)
2. Where? (Where are we going? How will we measure success?)
3. What? (What do we need to focus on? Our key strategic initiatives.)
4. How? (How will we proceed. Who needs to execute what?)
On the surface these are straight forward questions and central to team alignment. The deficiency comes when the team are not clear or more importantly do not “buy in” to the answers.
When the team does not connect the importance of their personal contribution to the overall performance of the team, the result can be a total lack of commitment, wasted time and effort and low morale.
4. POOR MEETING DISCIPLINE. (1 on 1 and team)
Getting a team aligned is one thing, keeping them focused and moving together in a coordinated way is difficult. Leaders who struggle with discipline usually suffer from one or all of the following.
1. Undisciplined approach to team meetings. Team meetings are ad hock and regularly cancelled or re-scheduled.
2. When meetings do occur, they are unstructured and usually revert to reporting with little engagement and debate on key issues.
3. There is little or no one to one engagement with team members to discuss their performance and keep them focused on the right things..
4. It is unlikely there is any structured review of strategy.
The result is that team members are likely to operate independently rather than in an organized way and more than likely to spend time, effort and resources working on things that are unproductive.
Without meeting discipline the best you can expect is unfocused effort ...at it’s worst…you have complete chaos.
5. MANAGING THINGS…RATHER THAN LEADING PEOPLE
Finally, there are leaders who see their role as just to manage things rather than lead people. They will rarely challenge the status quo and are unlikely to challenge their team either individually or collectively.
These leaders (managers) believe their role is to just keep things on track. The idea that they are responsible to drive improvement in their team both individually and collectively doesn’t enter their thinking. Being relentless in the pursuit of improvement is just not part of their makeup.
So, when the ultimate leadership questions are asked, “What did you leave behind? Did the Team improve under your guidance? What was your legacy? The answer is, “NOT MUCH!”
ALL LEADERS CAN MEET THESE CHALLENGES
All Leaders have the capacity to meet and beat these challenges. It’s not easy, because in almost every case it requires a change in behaviour. But with an open mind and a genuine willingness to improve we have seen leaders make significant progress across all 5 challenges.
PS: Do you want to help your leaders not become the limit? Maybe we can help..
