THE 7 DEADLY SINS OF

LEADERSHIP

All Too Common Mistakes
That You Must Avoid



SuccessfulLeadershipSkills.com

302 N. El Camino Real, Suite 102
San Clemente, CA 92672
949-366-2927
info@SuccessfulLeadershipSkills.com
i


The 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership

Table of Contents

1. Put yourself firstyour people and the organization
someplace lower or non-existent.

2. Be tough with people in public, but a pussycat in private.

3. Treat your people like they are dumblie, change stories
and other misdirections.

4. Keep your Sacred CowsCows are comfy and will be nice
to you maybe.

5. Throw your people under the busmake sure senior
management knows that any problems are because of
themnot because of you, processes, or hurdles.

6. Constantly change strategies and organization charts.

7. Use rumor and innuendo for decision makingignore facts
and logic.


2


The First Deadly Sin:
Put Yourself First.Your People and The
Organization Lower or Non-existent


It happens all too often that leaders abuse their position. They see it as a
license to take care of their needs and success before anyone elses.

These leaders also put their own success above the organizations.

What do they do that you must avoid doing? What do you want to do?

They give themselves all of the most exciting and visible
assignments. You want to motivate your people with great
opportunities and visibility.

They spend no time creating opportunities for their people to grow.
You want one of your top priorities to be looking for ways to give
your people opportunities to stretch.

They rarely make a sacrifice to help a colleague if it does not
directly benefit them. You want to act like a General Manager who
is responsible for the success of the entire organization. You want
to help wherever it will value the organization.

They badmouth others business decisions and undermine peoples
enthusiasm for the work that needs to be done. You want to
support decisions by explaining the logic behind them (even if you
personally disagree!) and show people what they can do to make
the decision a success.



3


The Second Deadly Sin:
Be Tough With People in Public, But a
Pussycat in Private


We cant tell you how many times we have seen this: in a team meeting the
leader harshly corrects a subordinate. Maybe the person needed the
correction, but they are embarrassed and everyone else is uncomfortable
and secretly relieved that it wasnt their turn in the barrel.

But, after the meeting the subordinate goes into the boss office to talk
about what happened and the boss lets them off the hook. They say things
like, it really isnt that bad I didnt mean it I guess you are really doing
OK.

In short they show bluster and over do it when they are not one-on-one with
the person they want to correct. But, when they do get face to face they
are not brave enough to look the person in the eye and tell them that they
have to change, improve, work harder, etc.

What you want to do is to be honest, but supportive with your people when
other people are present. As a leader your words carry a lot of impact. Be
responsible with them. You want to save your toughest criticisms for
one-on-one conversations.

That is the surefire way to assure that your people have the chance of
taking your direction to heart and changing.






4


The Third Deadly Sin:
Treat Your People Like They are
DumbLie, Change Stories and Other
Misdirections


We wish we have not seen this about 5 thousand times, but we wont lie to
you, we have. Probably more than that!

What these leaders do is in an attempt to avoid dealing with the truth,
which is often not pretty; they spin whatever story is easy to pass off at the
time.

We remember a big merger we were working on. We had led a bunch of
focus groups with employees to find out what they were concerned about.
Overwhelmingly they told us that they thought senior management was
lying to them by telling them there would be no layoffs. It was obvious to
anyone who was paying attention that layoffs were necessary. It was all
over the business press. If you could read, you knew.

We reported this back to the executive team. Well never forget what
happened next. The room was silent. The COO looked around and said;
Well expletive! Of course were lying to them, if we told them the truth
theyll give us a hard time. Nobody challenged him.

Suffice it to say that the senior team had no credibility and many good
employees left in disgust and frustration. The merger failed and both
companies eventually went out of business.

What you want to do is respect your peoples intelligence. Tell the truth
even if its hard. They will respect you for it.



5


The Fourth Deadly Sin:
Keep Your Sacred CowsCows are Comfy
and Will Be Nice to YouMaybe!


You know who they are. Everyone knows who they are. But these leaders
let them wreak havoc on the team. Sacred Cows say what they want.
They do (or dont do!) what they want. And the leader never says a word.

This turn a blind eye behavior causes immeasurable damage. In our
experience it is common for the good people to say that the only reward
around here for being good is that they load more work on you, while so
and so (the Sacred Cow) gets away with doing almost nothing.

If you do not hold everyone equally accountable, eventually the
performance and behavior of the whole team drops to the lowest common
denominator.

It may seem like the Sacred Cow is being nice to you and is easy to have
around, but it is not true. They are the silent killer to high performance.
They are hurting you and everyone else around them.

What you want to do is talk to them in private about what must change.
Hold them equally accountable to the standards you hold everyone else to.

Remember that everyone knows that you are not dealing with the Sacred
Cow. It is not a secret! Your credibility depends on addressing these
situations.






6


The Fifth Deadly Sin:
Throw Your People Under the Bus


Wow, its incredible that some leaders do this but, painfully, they do.

When a mistake happens, a deadline is missed, a performance target is
undershot, these leaders grasp at the easiest scapegoattheir people.
So and so did not do what I asked them to They never listen So and
so is so disorganized. Youve heard them all. And they are disastrous for
a leaders effectiveness.

Things are going to go wrong. Business is hard; we all know that. What
you want to do when things go wrong, as they inevitably will, is to take
personal accountability. As the leader you must take responsibility for
everything that goes wrong with your team.

Step up and say, I am accountable for that and this is what I am going to
do to fix it. This is where the biggest of the big leaders make their bones.
They embrace problems and fix them. Business is nothing if not a series of
problems to solve.

So you want to look at mistakes as an opportunity for greatness! Take
personal accountability for the problem and fix it! And then share the
praise with your teamevery time!

7


The Sixth Deadly Sin:
Constantly Change Strategies and
Organization Charts


Lots of ineffective leaders change strategies and organizational structures
so often that their peoples heads spin. Why do leaders to this? Well, if
they do it frequently enough theyll never have to be accountable for
actually accomplishing anything from the last plan they devised.

Here is one of our favorites: Its time to centralize to save money and
harvest synergies.. unless you did that last time. Then its time to
decentralize to get the resources where the work is and to get closer to the
customer.

Have you ever experienced that? Odds are you have a lot! We are not
saying that the leaders that do this are all trying to avoid accountability
although some certainly are. In many cases they do it because they are
grasping for the Next Great Idea. They have not done enough good solid
planning to know what to do.

We dealt with a leader that managed by the American Airlines Magazine
idea of the month. He traveled a lot. He read the in-flight magazine and
came back from every trip with the next big idea. The organization was
whipsawed and never made any real progress.

What you want to do is spend quality time with your team to collaborate on
a solid plan and organizational structure to execute it. Then stay the
course. Sure, you can make course corrections, but give that plan time to
work. Stand behind it; take accountability for it. Drive it to success!





8


The Seventh Deadly Sin:
Use Rumor and Innuendo For Decision
Making...Ignore Facts and Logic


As a leader you make hundreds of decisions every day. They are your
stock in trade. Their quality dictates the level of your success. Considering
this, doesnt it make sense to base every decision of real facts and solid
logic? It sure does. But

Way too many leaders do not do it that way. It is way too common for
leaders to make decisions based on the last conversation they had with a
colleague. But, then when they have their next conversation and that
persons point of view differs from the last point of view they change
direction. Is there any real chance that either of those decisions was a
good one? We dont think so, either.

Another mistake these leaders make is drawing conclusions about people
in the organization based on rumors or innuendos they hear about them.
This trait is death for a leader. It is always wrong and misleading.

What you want to do is draw on facts and logic for every decision. All the
time. Do not be swayed by emotion or one persons story or opinion. And
never form an opinion about someone based on someone elses opinion.

You want to fully engage with your organization. Talk to people with
diverse points of view. In particular, seek out people with perspectives that
are radically different from your own. This is the way to get as close to the
real truth as you possibly can.

This approach to decision making will guide you to success every time.