Signs of dysfunctional leadership
February 19, 2008
Thank you for visiting. I look forward to staying in touch. You can subscribe to my RSS feed. You can also contact me directly and please feel free to do so. Thanks for visiting!
There are many ways to tell whether your organization suffers from dysfunctional leadership. Here are twelve of them. This list is clearly not exhaustive, but quite diagnostic.
- Everybody shows up at nine or slightly thereafter and leaves at five or slightly before. Also, staff knows exactly all the holidays (including president’s day), but forget that lunch hour doesn’t count towards your eight hours at work.
- Staff are pulled in many different directions and can’t decide what is most important. Nobody is truly empowered to set priorities in their own work.
- People lack a terrible sense of urgency.
- Strategic visions live in the minds of those at the top, and the rest of the organization is guessing
- Or the rest doesn’t care
- Decisions get made, but they don’t get carried out
- No one shows real passion. Are you creating a better world?
- People at work complain about trivialities. “I don’t disagree with what you said, but I disagree with the way you said it.”
- Staff meetings are dedicated to making forms.
- Those in charge talk and don’t listen
- Staff is always asking solutions from the top.
- The one in charge can never be reached. “Oh, he is too busy for that, really he cannot be reached.” Just remember that she gets paid the big bucks precisely to talk to staff, constituents, clients.
Of course, we always know that it is the fault of the leaders. Just remember, if you are not a leader yourself, in charge of what your tasks and projects are, what are you still doing there.
Technorati Tags: leadership, organization
Comments
Got something to say?
