Workplace uncertainty has created a survival of the fittest mentality where people are being forced to look after themselves, with the hopes of finding a leader who can be a mentor they can trust and that guides them rightly. Employees are inspired by leaders who provide them with their wisdom and access to resources; that open new doors of opportunity and connect them to meaningful relationships to help them achieve career success. Employees want leaders who have their backs and best interests at heart. Twenty-first century leadership requires new skills that tap into your natural characteristics and an elevated awareness of employee strengths and capabilities. Enabling their authentic engagement and earning their trust and loyalty keeps people motivated, focused and productive. The old top-down ways of leading are just not as effective any more , especially when you consider that leaders must adapt to behavioral nuances from a more diverse, multi-generational and cross-cultural talent pool that demands specific attention to boost their full potential. Every leader must be a change agentor face extinction.
Most leaders are in the spotlight in today’s changing workplace terrain and an ability to get the most out of employees by leading in ways that make work fun again (while getting the work done) is in high demand. Unfortunately, many leaders are still operating on cruise control with old-school methods of leadership that have become outdated and fail to inspire employees in the post-2008 economy.
Today’s leader must be more collaborative, transparent, and willing to test their employees’ ideas and ideals by providing them a platform where their voices can be heard. Leaders must embrace an entrepreneurial attitude that empowers employees to be themselves and inspires them to be courageous. Leaders don’t have all the answers and thus must trust themselves enough to know when to rely on their employees for the betterment of a healthier whole.
Has your leadership fallen into old-school leadership traps, unsure of how employees want to be lead? Here are 20 warning signs that you are working for the wrong leader.
1. Always Negative
Leaders that see the glass half empty lack optimism and hope. They deflate your excitement and discourage your passionate pursuits of endless possibilities. Oftentimes negative leaders grow envious of your capabilities that they are unable to perform themselves.
2. Don’t Encourage
Leaders who are not lifting and guiding you to reach your full potential are not doing their job. Their world is centered upon their needs, not yours. Many times they don’t encourage you because they are threatened and see you as standing in the way of their glory.
When a leader constantly pulls you down, you begin to feel as if you don’t really matter and that your sole responsibility is to follow and do what you are told. This type of leader makes it difficult for you to grow and prosper.
3. Are Not Grateful
Leaders that don’t appreciate or acknowledge your hard work and contributions also set a negative tone in the organization. It surprises me just how many leaders don’t take the time to say “thank you” or send a simple follow-up email of gratitude. Though they expect you to do your job, they don’t have to take you for granted.
Being grateful is an easy way to give employees more recognition and respect. Never take employees for granted. If you do, don’t expect their loyalty and trust – let alone their willingness to keep meeting your performance expectations.
4. High Maintenance
When a leader’s expectations begin to expose their own weaknesses, you have been dealt a high maintenance individual. High maintenance leaders demand too much because they don’t understand the job well enough to effectively delegate.
High maintenance leaders become another full-time job for employees and this gets in the way of delivering on their own responsibilities -- let alone the additional ones assumed for the leader incapable of effectively leading his or her team. (Sounds exhausting doesn’t it.)
5. Too Controlling
Leaders that want to control everything are those that don’t empower you to think freely. When leaders are too controlling this is a sign that they do not trust their employees enough to manage the tasks at hand.
Controlling leaders stifle employee growth, development and maturity – and by extension that of the organization.
6. Manipulative
Leaders that lift you and inspire hope -- only to then leech from you (to bring you back down) are the most manipulative and untrustworthy of leaders. Every leader has an agenda and if it requires manipulative tactics to propel the organization and/or their department forward, there is eventually going to be high employee turnover.
It’s difficult to co-exist in a workplace environment that is fueled by leaders that manipulate, rather than authentically stimulate growth and opportunities for their employees. Manipulation is a short-term approach that is not sustainable.
7. Lack Self-Trust
When leaders lack self-trust, how can they aid their employees’ advancement when they don’t have the confidence to advance their own? When leaders lack self-trust they begin to steal the ideas of others to manage their own reputation. This is why many leaders quickly become followers when the going gets tough. This is not an attractive proposition for employees that are in search of a leader that they can learn from and that can teach them new ways of doing things.
8. Hide From Accountability
For some leaders, paying it forward means letting others deal with the problems they should have solved themselves. Accountability is the number one thing that great managers learn to master. Once you become a leader, it should become second nature as your influence grows.
Leaders that push down accountability to wipe their hands clean of any wrong doing immediately lose respect from their employees. Leaders that hide when you need them most are the ones that won’t help you solve your problems. Employees get discouraged when leaders don’t act in their best interests.
9. Disorganized
A disorganized leader is one that lacks organized thinking and thus has a greater tendency to put their employees in a position of risk. When leaders are disorganized it creates disruption and a malfunctioning part of the business.
Employees expect their leaders to be organized as it is a reflection of their style and approach and commitment to serving others.
10. Know It All
Some leaders want to believe they have all the answers and expect others to always do things their way. Leaders that profess to “know it all” are usually the ones that lack any real creativity or original thought. These are the types of leaders that read books only to steal the ideas of others to solve problems and position the intelligence as their own.
When leaders believe they have all of the answers, they make it difficult for their employees to share their own. Self-centeredness is a highly unattractive quality. It’s never fun to be led by someone whose ego stands in the way of your success.
11. No Vision for the Future
It’s difficult to respect a leader that doesn’t know where they want to take the organization and how to develop the right succession plans for their employees. People that are uncertain about the future lack the required entrepreneurial attitude to create a roadmap that keeps renewing and refreshing the organization and its people.
When leaders are unable to “connect the dots” of opportunity – their employees begin to disconnect quickly.
12. Lack Strong Decision Making Skills
When leaders lack the ability to make decisions, this leaves a bad taste in the mouths of employees. It’s difficult to get excited about a leader that lacks the instincts and know-how to go about making the right decisions. Many times leaders begin to depend upon others too much or they get into a decision making rut. Others realize they have no one to turn to for help when the time comes to be accountable for the decisions that need to be made.
Employees want decisive, forward-thinking leaders that take pride in being on-point with their decisions so as to minimize any potential problems that might come the organization’s way.
13. Incompetent
Just because you are in a leadership role doesn’t guarantee that you are the most knowledgeable person in the room. When you lack the required depth, substance and competence to be an effective leader, it makes it difficult to build a reputation to be proud of – or that your employees can share with clients, vendors, strategic partners, etc.
14. Micromanages
When your judgment is constantly second guessed and when you feel as if every move you make is being monitored or questioned by your leader, it’s impossible to get excited about your work. Leaders that micromanage are those that have trouble letting go of their own self-doubt and insecurities about themselves and/or the people they lead.
Micromanagement is extremely annoying for employees that are looking to get discovered at work; instead they feel the angst of being under constant surveillance.
15. Poor Listeners
Leaders that don’t take the time to listen to what their employees are saying are the ones that continue to miss the opportunities that lie right in front of them. Most problems are solved and opportunities previously unseen are discovered through listening. Leaders may not always realize it, but their employees know when they are not listening to them.
Poor listeners are inconsistent leaders. They turn off their employees who are not being heard and make them feel as if their voices don’t matter.
16. Lack Attention to Detail
Great leaders see what others don’t, do what others won’t, and keep pushing when prudence says quit. Attention to detail is what enables us to see what lies around, beneath and beyond the obvious – and keeps everyone on their toes.
When leaders lack attention to detail it gives people pause about what their leaders may not be seeing about employee growth and career development requirements.
17. Don’t practice what they preach
Leaders that don’t practice what they preach are not following their own rules. This makes it difficult to value what your leader expects from you if they don’t play by the same game plan.
When leaders say one thing and do another, they lack the authenticity that is required to be a trustworthy leader.
18. Lack Consistency
Leaders that lack consistency in their approach, style and how they run their business are difficult to rely upon. .
Consistency is an undervalued leadership trait that matters most to employees and that leaders must develop in their quest to earn respect and trust. Employees expect their leaders to have the discipline, structure and mindfulness to deliver great and consistent leadership in everything they do and how they do it.
19. Dishonest
Leaders that have a tendency to be dishonest with others are the ones most likely to be dishonest with themselves. Dishonesty comes packaged in all shapes and sizes and when leaders are dishonest with their employees, it is challenging to get behind them or believe anything they say.
These types of leaders often have hidden agendas and come across as too political at best, devious and inauthentic at worst. Dishonesty is the surest and fastest way to lose trust from employees, and once lost it may never be regained.
20. Identity Crisis
Leaders that are challenged by points 1 – 19 are the ones that have a leadership identity crisis. When leaders can’t define their identity as a leader, it makes it difficult for them to live what they stand for – and a challenge for their employees and colleagues to experience the real person that they are. As a result, they battle the gulf between assimilation and authenticity trying to figure out where they fit at work and how they should be leading others.
When leaders don’t know their own identity, they get lost in the rush of business necessity. This is when they – often unknowingly – begin to show many of the 20 warning signs discussed here. This makes it difficult for them to lead in ways that come most naturally to them.
But it’s even more difficult to work for such a leader – one that isn’t genuine and can’t be trusted to reveal their employees’ strengths and opportunities for advancement.