When leading a group of people, it is always important to take a step back and evaluate yourself whether you are leading or walking alone. To help you avoid these signs in your organisation, Human Capital International is sharing with you these seven indicators of leadership failures compiled out of decades of training and interacting with hundreds of C-level executives.

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No growth of the leader, followers and organisation.

It is said that the growth of an organisation is a direct reflection of the leadership capacity of the one in the driver’s seat – the leader, the one in charge of all the strategic decisions for that organisation.  The easiest way to measure the progress and the leadership capacity of a leader is how the followers are being prepared to assume bigger roles and the rate at which the organisation is growing. Excellent leaders make deliberate decisions and plans to inspire and develop their followers, as well as transform the organisations they lead. Any organisation devoid of progress is a clear reflection of the ineptness of the leader in charge of that organization.

The know it all attitude.

When a leader thinks he or she is the alpha and omega of knowledge and solutions to the organisation’s challenges, it is a clear indication that there is failure in the leadership arena. “I know it all” attitude kills the internal cohesion, drive and creative minds of team members who are brought on board to support the leader to think and add value to the organisation. In the 21 century, by virtue of technology, no one has a monopoly of the best and only ways of addressing the challenges in an organisation and if a leader thinks without him or her nothing can happen in the organisation, then he or she is setting himself or herself up for failure and that organisation is doomed.

It is not time to delegate my duties.

What is leadership in the first place if you cannot select, groom and develop someone or a few people in your team to do exactly or even surpass what you are doing as a leader? If no one in your team is able to, over time, match a leader’s ability if given the opportunity to execute tasks, then leadership is failing in their duties of mentoring, training and developing the led, hence should revisit the strategic functions of the leader.

Existence of cliques.

When members of your organisation are fun of constituting themselves into cliques that the leader knows nothing about or how to handle their effect on the organisation, it is a clear indication that the leader lacks social and situational sensing capability, a clear sign that something is not right at the top.  These informal groupings, if not checked appropriately by the leader, can deprive the organisation of internal cohesion, shared vision and creative ideas that would otherwise transform the organisation.

The soonest a leader sharpens his or her situational and social sensing capabilities to understand the contextual sociability and solidarity formations in the group that he or she leads the better, if the organisation and the leader’s legacy is to be saved. The lack of these core soft skills is a clear pointer to a possible leadership failure.

Lack of freedom to complain or question anything.

Any workplace with more than one person will at any given time experience some form of conflicts or complaints. Not all complainants are bad, and if a leader’s posture and style of leadership is not receptive to feedback from the led, it automatically leads to a culture of silence within the organisation. Intelligent minds cannot agree at all times. If that happens, it is most likely that the leader has built walls of terror to dissent and team members follow just to keep their jobs.

No trust

Leadership is about building trust and maintaining relationships. If there is mistrust and no loyalty among the followers themselves on the one hand and between them and the leader, something is wrong with the leadership of that organisation. It could be that a leader is not exhibiting integrity or not involving members in decision making of the organisation. Remember, fish starts to rot from the head. Once there is a marked difference between what a leader says and does, there is bound to be a high level of mistrust and suspicion in the group. Leadership is all about influence and a core part of influence is integrity; walking the talk and talking the walk. The absence of which is a clear sign of leadership failure.

Followers not aligned to the organisation vision.

Every time members of an organisation are not aligned to the goals and objectives of a company; it is a clear indication that the leader is not executing a major part of his leadership responsibility.  A leader ought to have a clear strategy of articulating the vision-where the company is and going to everyone in the organisation so that followers are aligned to it. If there is no clear direction of the organisation, then a leader is failing and leadership is completely missing.

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