There are so many videos, books and articles on great leadership behaviours that it is hard to know where to start. Perhaps you subscribe to ‘The 21 Irrefutable Laws Of Leadership”, practice “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” or have watched every Simon Sinek talk on Youtube.
But being told what to do all the time is boring. A more interesting subject is leadership behaviours that are wrong — behaviours that you should avoid at all costs. Behaviours that are toxic, destructive and often plain unkind — and which appear All. The. Time.
This post is the first in a series. The remaining seven will each focus on one deadly sin of leadership. Full disclosure: there are clearly more than seven poor leadership behaviours. However I hope that by focusing on this set, you will learn something new, be more thoughtful about your own behaviour and in doing so, avoid turning to the dark side.
You will probably recognise some leadership sins from your own experience, either in your day job or another organisation you are part of. If there is a bad leadership behaviour which I have not covered and you need to rant about, have a laugh about or just highlight in the hope that someone avoids it, please add it in the comments.
The seven deadly sins
Sin 3: Spending too much energy managing up
Sin 4: Micromanaging
Sin 5: Not protecting your team
Sin 6: Saying one thing and doing another
Sin 7: Short term thinking
