Episode 100: The Unexpected Bad Habits of Leaders

No one expects ever to be described as an arrogant or complacent boss. Most leaders we know have the assumption that their career will be akin to a musical crescendo. It may start quietly and slowly, but they believe that as they age, more responsibility will come. And because of their years of experience, they will continually improve at making decisions and inspiring those they work with. And yes, most also assume that their value to an organization will steadily increase so that their final years of work will be the highest paying. But something that they may not expect is the bad habits that leaders may develop along the way. In this episode, we are looking into the warning signs and how to fix some of the bad habits of leaders before it’s too late.

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Key Points

• Two bad habits of leaders. We’ll define arrogance as one person’s belief that their ideas and opinions are more valuable and define complacency as an attitude of self-satisfaction that leads to people automatically and mindlessly following a routine.

• The twin demons of arrogance and complacency appear to have an accelerating negative impact. Based on 360-degree feedback data from 65,253 managers, ZENGER FOLKMAN found the following:

• While some leaders manage to ward off this plague, the majority do not. We found that as leaders age, their willingness and skill at asking others for feedback and taking action to improve declines significantly.

• Deliberately change some behavior. Remember that improved leadership does not stem from reading books or listening to lectures for new information. Leadership improvement can only be evidenced by new behavior.

• Open the feedback spigot. Increase the amount of feedback you receive by overtly asking for it

• Create a mechanism that relentlessly holds you accountable to implement the change you seek to make. 

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