5 Bad Leadership Behaviours Every Leader Should Avoid

0:00Okay, here we go. The five things that are absolutely driving me crazy with leaders at the moment. Number one, no self-management. Thinking it's absolutely okay to just react to a situation. Thinking it's okay to turn up into the office completely stressed and not realizing the impact that's going to have to everyone else around you. Offloading to your team that you've not slept and you're so busy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's just going to put so much pressure on your team. So this little self-management or even thinking about the language you're using, oh, the client's a nightmare, this, again, stress levels in the team.

0:36As a leader, you have the personal responsibility to learn how to manage yourself, to have strong self-leadership, which is having good self-awareness, being able to self-reflect and then being able to self-regulate your behavior. You can't not do this as a leader. It takes effort, it takes work, but it's your responsibility. Otherwise, please just don't be a leader. The second one is avoiding difficult conversations. I know this isn't new news and it's something that I don't particularly like to do, but it's the right thing to do. If you have any idea how much wasted time there is right now because the conversations are not happening, please pick up Kim Scott Radical Candor, watch your whole YouTube, listen to podcasts about it, educate yourself on how to give and receive, most importantly, difficult feedback.

1:30Third one, not looking after yourself. I was absolutely shocked when I heard a leader tell me that they were a high performer because they hit their numbers. It didn't matter. They were pretty much burning out, haven't slept well for months, haven't seen their kids. And I was just like, but it was like, yeah, but I'm a high performer. and it's like what? Absolutely no way. High performance is when you look after yourself. You get up in the morning, you have a good breakfast, you maybe read something, you talk to a friend, you go for a walk, you do some exercise. High performance is having filters for really good decision making.

2:05High performance is getting a good night's sleep and high performance is making sure you nourish your body with the right foods. That's high performance because then you're going to show up with really grounded, strong confidence. And also it just embeds that discipline you need to be a leader. And that consistency will just give you the freedom to just continue to keep growing because you can show up well. The number one thing leaders keep dropping when they're busy is their self-care. It needs to be the one thing that increases because you're getting more busy and because there's more pressure.

2:38So number four, getting a coach and in the coach is going to solve all your problems without you needing to do any work. Seriously, I've worked with some amazing leaders and the ones that had the transformations are the ones that do the work in between the sessions. I've also worked with many leaders who come to the session who go, I don't know what I want to talk about. They want you to do all the work to try and figure out what it is they're trying to solve. They do no work in between. They constantly reschedule their sessions. But because they've said, I've got a coach, it's almost like, well, that means I must be doing something to improve myself, although they're actually not doing anything.

3:14You are wasting a lot of people's time and investment because coaching isn't cheap and it's just not fair to yourself on what you could be achieving. So if you're going to get a coach, recognize it is a commitment to time and effort and the willingness to have the courage to change. Otherwise, please don't. And the last one, number five, is leaders being too self-focused. I find it so hard when it's all me, me, me as a leader. Yes, I talk about self-care and you've got to put yourself first so you can show up for others. But when you're going into the office and it's, well, this is what I want, where I want to sit, the project I want to work on, the person that I want to lead.

3:50When it's all just focused on what you need and you're not thinking about the impact of anyone in your team, that is not leadership. Go back to just, I don't know, is it being a manager or not, but just don't be a leader. If you're so focused on yourself and can't let other people in and you also you don't have empathy for others and you don't have compassion for others, that's not leadership. So that's my little rant of an episode. But from this, please take note. If you want to be a great leader, you've chosen to be a leader. It takes effort. It's a daily practice on how you show up. Read. You need to be reading every day or listening to a podcast or connecting with other leaders to hold yourself accountable.

4:34It's not a job title that you can just sit back on. Becoming a leader elevates what's possible for you, but the effort has to elevate as well. There you go. I'd love to know what are the things that are driving you crazy in leadership right now. Please pop them in the comments because I'd really like to build up what's going on right now that we really do have the opportunity to change. And to do this from a point of view, I know this sounds like a bit of a rant, but it's actually from the point of view is trying to help leaders to wake them up and what it is going to take to lead over the next few years.

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