Failure in leadership is waiting for you.

Not because YOU are a failure, more because we all fail at something, at some time. Jim Rohn said, “Too bad failures don’t do seminars, wouldn’t that be valuable?”

On becoming an exceptional team leader it’s critical to understand the process of failure is the path of growth. On the way you’re likely to make one or more of these seven mistakes. The good news is you can become aware of them, see them coming, and mitigate the impact of them in your leadership. You’re likely to have a tendency towards a few of them, stumble into a few of them and be less susceptible to a few of them.

Leadership is a game of tensions – between connectedness and outcomes. Getting that tension right is the art of leadership. In her Harvard Business Review Article “Why Highly Efficient Leaders Fail” Rebecca Zucker says:

“Great leaders are able to balance task-focus (getting things done) with people-focus (inspiring, developing, and empowering others). Highly task-focused leaders tend to have tunnel vision in their drive for results, rather than applying a broader lens that recognises the need to sometimes “go slow to go fast”. Leaders who balance task- and people-focus are equally driven and also strive for results, but they keep the broader organisational needs in mind. They also recognise that it’s not just about being efficient — it’s about being effective.”

Somewhere in this people focus and task focus tension is your natural tendency as a leader. That tendency left unchecked will at some point in time, result in a leadership failure for you. What’s most useful to you and your team is that you know what they are and you have a plan to feel, frame, learn and leverage from the failures you’ll all ultimately experience.

As you navigate these 7 common failures look for the two or three you’d be most likely to be susceptible to. Take them to your next Coaching session and navigate how to be aware of it, what strategies you can put in place early and how to lead yourself and others through these particular challenges.

The 7 most common failures of team leaders are:

  1. Authority without awareness.
  2. Accountability without expectation.
  3. Activity without clarity.
  4. Discussions without decisions.
  5. Tell without asking.
  6. Conflict without confrontation.
  7. Work without play.

Over the next several posts we will unpack the “Framing Failure Model” that will help you leverage the inevitable failure and each of the seven common mistakes in more detail and what to do about each one of them.

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What are your “Top 3” that you’d be most likely to do as a leader? Share that with a trusted friend and commit to 30 days of accountability and mutual mentoring.