The most common bad leadership habits are not personality flaws, either although it may sometimes appear so. Remedying them does not require medication or therapy.
What we are really dealing with here are challenges in interpersonal behavior or the egregious annoyances that make the workplace substantially more noxious than necessary. These faults do not occur in isolation; they involve one person interacting with another.
Executive coach Marshall Goldsmith in his book What Got You Here Will Not Get You There compiled the following list of negative habits after years of working with top executives in Fortune 500 companies. Some of the qualities cited are subtle, while others are glaringly obvious. Often, they may not appear to be harmful on the surface; in reality, they are bona fide detriments.
1. Winning too much. The need to win at all costs and in all situations when it matters and even when it does not, when it is totally beside the point.
2. Adding too much value. The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
3. Passing judgment. The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
4. Making destructive comments. The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
5. Starting with no, but or however. The overuse of these negative qualifiers, which secretly convey to everyone, I am right. You are wrong.
6. Telling the world how smart we are. The need to show people we are smarter than they think we are.
7. Speaking when angry. Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
8. Negativity (Let me explain why that will not work.). The need to share our negative thoughts, even when we have not been asked to do so.
9. Withholding information. The refusal to share information so we can maintain an advantage over others.
10. Failing to give proper recognition. The inability to praise and reward.
11. Claiming credit we do not deserve. The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
12. Making excuses. The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people will excuse us for it.
13. Clinging to the past. The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
14. Playing favorites. Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
15. Refusing to express regret. The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we are wrong or recognize how our actions affect others.
16. Not listening. The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for our colleagues.
17. Failing to express gratitude. The most basic form of bad manners.
18. Punishing the messenger. The misguided need to attack the innocent who, usually, are only trying to help us.
19. Passing the buck. The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
20. An excessive need to be me. Exalting our faults as virtues, simply because they embody who we are.
This is a scary group of bad behaviors, however most people exhibit only one or two simultaneously.
