Why You Suck As A Leader

The title of leader, supervisor, manager, CEO, president or whatever it is, doesn’t make you a leader. There is a huge difference between a leader and a boss. As a female leader that spent over a decade in leadership positions it’s safe to say that I know the difference between being a leader and a boss. I also know what it is like to work for someone that is a leader and for someone that is a boss with no leadership skills. 

This blog is written from all of my experiences as a leader and if you are a leader or even trying to be a leader I hope you learn from my journey and the things you can do for your team and for yourself to be a stronger leader. If you want to hear more on what you need to know as a leader, check out this episode where I break it all down!

Being a minority in leadership in the automotive world I learned really quick how to stand up for myself and use my voice. I had to be extra loud just to have my voice heard whether it was for myself or for my team. I learned that being a loving and kind female didn’t get me anywhere so instead I had to learn how to play the game, and be in my masculine energy just to get respect as a leader. Part of this was conditioning and teaching me how to use my voice and own it in every aspect of life.

I am grateful that I had all these experiences as a leader so I could learn and grow from all of it. In the moment of the bad leadership and dealing with leaders that were managers I didn’t see it but I can now see the beauty in all of it.

You micromanage your team. Micromanaging is not leadership. There is nothing as bad as working for someone that micromanages you. My whole career I was very driven and a high achiever with no reason to ever be micromanaged. All of my assignments were done on time. When I worked for a manager that micromanages me so much to the point where I was a salary employee having to report hour by hour what I was working on. I felt like a child and the trust was gone. If you are micromanaging your team you are wasting your time as a leader and you are also giving your team the message that you don’t trust them to get the job done.  

You have no work life balance. You are always checking your phone, sending out emails, making calls and not taking time for yourself. You are burning yourself out and what you don’t realize is you are not able to show up for your team when you are burned out. You are going to start expecting your team to do the same thing and work just as hard as you are working with no work life balance and that is never a healthy work environment. 

You don’t take a stand for minorities. Whether you are a minority or not you need to understand as a leader what struggles minorities face and take a stand for them. Start taking a stronger stance against discrimination when you see it happens and don’t brush it off like it doesn’t matter because it does matter even if it is a small comment or not a big deal to you, it is a big deal to the person that is being discriminated against.  

You don’t understand different personality types. You treat every single employee the same on your team and that doesn’t work since every single person is unique and has a different personality type. Understanding each one of your team’s personalities will help you understand them as a person, how they like to be communicated to, what drives them or motivates them, etc. Have your team do a personality assessment similar to a DISC assessment so you can understand your entire team. 

You can’t have a confrontational conversation. When someone on your team is not doing what they are supposed to be doing you ignore it instead of having a conversation and actually addressing the concern. When your team sees that you ignored the issue they have no respect or trust in you as a leader to take care of the things that you should be taking care of. Learn how to have confrontational conversations when it is needed. 

You are not listening. Your team is proposing different ideas and speaking up on different things but you are not listening to them. When they speak you are listening to respond and you are not listening so they can be heard and have a voice.

You have a close mind. You are not open to change. When someone on your team presents something different or unique your immediate response is, “well that won’t work because we have never done that before”. Open up your mind and actually look at what is being proposed for changes and stop being in the mentality of we haven’t done that before so we can’t do that now. 

You are part of the good olé boys club. I witnessed this so many times in the automotive industry. I was a female therefore I was never part of this club but it was easy to pick out the ones that were in the club. Here are some examples of it if you are wondering what that looks like: certain people getting raises and promotions, meetings being held and not allowing the whole team to be there, inviting certain people to after work socials, all people of a certain race or gender are always together.

 There are many other ways that you can suck as a leader and if you are reading this as a leader I encourage you to do some self reflection and ask yourself where you can improve at. Each one of us can always improve and grow but we must make the choice to do so.

Comment below and tell me what you think makes a good leader.