The Seven Deadly Sins of Leadership

If you are like most leaders you have too much work to do and not enough time to do it. You are under-resourced and overwhelmed. The sheer pace of work is exhausting and you are connected 24/7 via the internet and other electronic media. One of your key challenges is achieving the required results while simultaneously coaching and developing your people.

After working with leaders for the past 20 years, I’ve noticed a number of obstacles to truly effective leadership. In fact these things are so problematic that I call them The 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership. If you keep committing these sins you will never get people to focus on the significant long-term priorities. Your people will continue to depend on you, never assuming the full responsibilities of their job. This can lead to overall ineffectiveness not to mention personal burnout.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting my “7 Deadly Sins of Leadership.” Here’s the first sin:

1. Becoming Chief of Problem Solving

Often times as the leader, you feel the need to solve all the problems. After all, you are quite good at problem solving and that is one of the key attributes that has propelled your career. When your employees come to you for help you gladly oblige and pretty soon are spending the majority of your time solving everyone else’s problems and not effectively managing your team, organization or company.

By solving all the problems, you create a culture that makes people dependent on you instead of independent of you. By the end of the day, have you really provided the leadership required to develop people? Have you empowered your employees to do the job they were hired to do?

One of the greatest skills you can learn as a leader is how to give problems back to your subordinates and coach them to become problem solvers. It all hinges on asking questions, not giving answers.

Answers disengage people; let them off the hook, essentially disempowering them. But questions engage people, make them think and take responsibility. When you ask your employees questions, they get back to work to answer those questions and solve the problems themselves.

Here are some questions that will help coach someone to become a problem solver:

• What have you tried already?
• What are two possible alternatives?
• What have you done in the past when faced with a similar situation?

These questions may seem simple, but by asking them you will empower employees and free up time forhigher priorities.