Tweet

Is Your Leadership Characteristics Limiting Your Business Success?

Written by: Ingrid Cliff

Article Overview: I have worked with stacks of businesses over the years. Often I am asked to name the most important indicator of whether or not a business will succeed or fail – my answer is always “Look at the CEO”. CEO’s and their personal leadership characteristics can make or break a business. A good CEO sets clear direction and boundaries, provides assistance and support to the team and then gets out of the way to let them accomplish what needs to be done. They help unblock roads if needed and provide guideposts along the way – but their management style is such that they do it in a way that creates independence of action rather than dependence.

Is Your Leadership Characteristics Limiting Your Business Success?

I have worked with stacks of businesses over the years. Often I am asked to name the most important indicator of whether or not a business will succeed or fail – my answer is always “Look at the CEO”. CEO’s and their personal leadership characteristics can make or break a business.

A good CEO sets clear direction and boundaries, provides assistance and support to the team and then gets out of the way to let them accomplish what needs to be done. They help unblock roads if needed and provide guideposts along the way – but their management style is such that they do it in a way that creates independence of action rather than dependence.

So here’s my list of the top 5 CEO management styles that most limit business success.

1. Ultimate creator

Creativity is a good thing right? Well yes and no. Creative types are great to get a new concept or project off the ground. They come up with unique ways of viewing the world and often have breakthrough thinking to old problems. The difficulty comes when the creator can’t just corral their thinking to one area. They end up constantly fiddling with things and never take anything to conclusion.

Employees get whiplash trying to keep up with all of the changes of direction, end up getting frustrated and either leave physically or mentally from the job. Often Ultimate Creators are dreadful at systems – even if they do have a system they are guaranteed not to follow it.

If this is you, then you need to hire people with structure around you. You need to stay within your flow of creating and outsource or hire people to do the nuts and bolts of the business.

2. Detail Nazi

CEOs are detail Nazi’s – constantly crossing t’s and dotting i’s. One manager I was aware of literally would spend hours correcting punctuation of briefs and proposal of his employees – and would totally miss the point of what was being proposed.

Employees spend more time chasing micro details than thinking strategically which means the business misses potential opportunities.

If this is you, then you need to work out why you are focussing on micro details. Are you carrying fear about being out of control? Are you a perfectionist in your personal life as well? What are the key metrics you really do need to focus on? If you don’t know then get someone help you work out your metrics. Keep your detail focus on what really matters and let the rest slide.

3. Hot and Cold Boss

Hot and Cold bosses are those who some days can be exceptional – they are focussed, strategic, engaging leaders (on some days of the week) and then all of a sudden something changes. It could be the wind direction, or the lunch they ate – but all of a sudden they are scattered, absent and withdrawn. Employees can’t get an answer from them to save their life. Hot and Cold Bosses abuse employees for not taking the initiative and then abuse them more if they do.

Employees spend most of the day trying to work out which way the wind is blowing. When the boss is “on track” they quickly race in and try and get everything through as they don’t know when they will get the next opportunity (which leads to the boss being overwhelmed with work, dropping the bundle, getting angry etc).

If this is you – try and work out what is putting you in the grip of your inner 2 year old. The times when are off track means you are operating from a space of stress. What can you do to better manage your stress (and the impact your stress is having on your employees and your business)?

4. Know it all

The know-it-all boss is often closely related to the Detail Nazi and is someone who has every answer to every problem (or thinks they should have). They must be involved in every decision and have the final word on everything. They often leave their own work undone as they are too busy chasing your stuff.

Employees never know the edge of their boundaries – so end up always passing everything up the line. The boss then gets overloaded and can’t work out why their employees don’t take initiative.
If this is you, then you can’t just stop being in the middle of everything and expect your business to survive. You have created a real problem where your employees now no longer know HOW to take initiative. You need to start setting clear boundaries and teach your employees once again how to deal with problems by themselves without involving you. You also need to share the content in your head – at the moment you are the only person who has all of the answers because you didn’t allow your team access to the answers.

5. The warm fuzzy

The warm fuzzy manager wants everyone to like them. They don’t set rules and want the group to make all the decisions. They procrastinate on making an answer and if someone complains, they will change the decision. They will avoid conflict at all costs – trying to get someone else to fix the problem for them or smile to the employees face and then moan about the employee behind their back.

Employees may feel happy to be working with you, but have no clear idea about what is important or a priority so in the absence of information make up their own priorities. This means lots of conflicting priorities, simmering conflict and massive undiscussables in the workplace.

If this is you, then you need to work out if you are running your business to be liked or to make money. They are not mutually exclusive – but sometimes decisions you will need to take will not make you popular with your employees. That is a fact of life.

Some managers exhibit a few of these traits combined, and if this is you then you need to look at the dominant trait and start with resolving that one first.

If your business is not as successful as it could be – maybe it is time to look deeply into a mirror and ask yourself “How am I holding back my business?”

Related Articles
  What is True Leadership?
  Got Limits?
  Are Limiting Beliefs Stopping You From Achieving Your Goals?
  Leadership Responsibility
  Top 10 Characteristics of Successful Sales Professionals

Article Tags: boundaries, breakthrough, briefs, business success, ceo, ceos, creative types, creativity, creators, dependence, guideposts, leadership characteristics, management style, management styles, nuts and bolts, personal leadership, proposal, punctuation, stacks, whiplash



Related Forum Posts
Re: Business Women Peer Mentoring Spotlight - Hi Everyone, Gosh, I REALLY appreciate your concrete feedback. This was far more than I expected and I'm glad you said what you thought straight out. Each of you have shared something of value and I want to take some more time to think and really go over what each of you have said. However, I can see there are some things I need to change right away. What an interesting point about a NEW program perhaps making people think they are guinea pigs! This is NOT what I want to convey! It's funny how we can see some things so clearly in others while not always seeing it for ourselves! I must admit there are a few things I've been meaning to change (like my bio which is very outdated). Obviously, these things need to be higher on my priority list. You caught me like the plumber who puts his clients first and doesn't get around to fixing his own tap! As far as my target market, I do feel quite strongly about working with Women Leaders and doing Leadership Coaching with them. It's non-negotiable in my books. In my Executive Coaching training, the terms "Leaders" and "Executives" are interchangable. To me, an Executive is a Leader and so is the Business Woman or Entrepreneur who is CEO of her own business. I love working with decision makers! What I did learn is that I need to avoid opening up the Leadership term beyond what I described above. I'm also wondering if there is a misunderstanding with the general public as to what Leadership Coaching really is. Leadership Coaching is all about developing your leadership skills, both as a people manager and in more effectively running and growing the business. There is ALWAYS room for growth in some way. As well, sometimes, we just need a sounding board to clarify what our next BEST step is. In fact, if a woman thinks she has nothing to work on, then we aren't a good Client/Coach fit anyway. How can she grow if she doesn't see the value of expressing ALL of the great ability within her? How can her company grow if she doesn't see the value of strategic planning for the next best level? Thanks again to you all! I will go back to my website and really question whether I am conveying the right message. I got more than I bargained for in this Spotlight... you generously offered way more than I was asking. I think we could be on to something great for the Forum. Now it's time to let someone else have the spotlight. It would be great if everyone took a turn! In gratitude, Tami
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Books for the Entrepreneur - Here's one of my most recent books The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success By Brian Tracy
Re: The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity - Hi Evan, Thanks for a great article and video on 'The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity'. I think that no matter whether you are self employed like myself or a CEO with staff, it is so important to manage your time so as to maximize the benefit to your business. Your expression Eliminate; Automate; Delegate is easy to remember and will certainly stick in my mind. There are many good business ideas out there but they will ultimately run into difficulty without proper planning and execution so these tips will certainly help. I have also left this comment on the article and will place a link to it on my blog. regards, Mal.
Re: 3 Ways I Used Twitter To Grow My Business This Week - Hi Olivia, It seems you are working in the area of leadership area. Is Leadership = Learning? I am looking for some good books on strategy? Which one do you recommend? Thanks, Robert


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

The new marketing question. Will they follow?

Setting Goals for your Home Based Business

Promoting your company and self with verve

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.