Failures of Leadership - Lessons Learned

In 25 years working with executives and executive teams I have rarely heard an executive or executive team raise the question, "Where are we failing as leaders?" of "How come we can't get the results we need from ...?"

So I ask that leaders stop externalizing the source of ineffectiveness – wherever and around whom it is showing up. Have the point-of-view that your leadership is where the problem is and where your focus should be.

Wouldn't it be great if leaders were willing to stop at regular intervals and review their own leadership performance. Which would mean we would have to give up the prevailing implicit assumption that leadership is not the problem, it is the people who report to us, and the folks that report to them, and ... that is where the problem is. Every explanation but confront the fact that we may be a major contributor to our organization's ineffectiveness and lack of progress as much as we are the source of all the brilliant things the organization does.

From our experience here are some of the key failures of leadership that get uncovered when the inquiry is conducted – failures that thwart the espoused intentions and commitments to the future we say we want.