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5 leadership mistakes that kill your firm's hopes of success
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 03:49 IST
Bangalore: It's true that mistakes provide great learning opportunities, but not those leadership mistakes that happen in a series which can kill execution abilities and eventually destroy your companies will to win.
Have you ever wondered why so many well-led, talented organizations with clear visions and target goals fail? Leadership expert John Hamm, the author of 'Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership' says it's because they've been infected with a disease he calls 'failing elegantly'. "Failing elegantly is a very sophisticated and veiled set of coping behaviors by individuals, the purpose of which is to avoid the oncoming train of embarrassment when the cover comes off the lousy results that we'd prefer no one ever see," he explains.
He says this disease takes effect when people stop believing they can be successful and start devoting their energy to how best to lose. Hamm points out a few leadership mistakes that put your team in danger of failing elegantly.
1. Setting Impossible Goals
It's a very tricky job to lead the goal-setting process where you have to arrive at business objectives that are perfectly sized. Managers need to be very careful when setting such goals with proper calculation of risks involved, expected challenges, and the ever deflating expectations. It's very important for the leadership to understand that their level of professional commitment would not be shared by everyone on the team. Hamm put this point very clearly in his own words, "Goals that are clearly beyond any reasonable confidence of achievement are worse than easy goals - they actually disengage your team's energy. The predictable and natural response is 'Why bother?' Your employees can't be productive if they have this sense of feeling that they are chasing a goal which is beyond their reach of realization. Managers need to set achievable goals that are explained clearly to the employees with intelligent prioritization of workload.
