5 Ways Good Intentions May Inadvertently Undermine Your Leadership

“He’s talented, but does he make his teammates better?”

When the answer to that question is yes, then we know we have a good leader. It is someone who is able to maximize potential, inspire, and create an environment where everyone enjoys collaborating. 

This comes from what I explained on a recent podcast as an abundance mindset, and it’s what leadership expert Liz Wiseman calls a Multiplier. 

When the answer to that question is no, it’s usually a red flag. Instead of energizing a group, they suck the energy out of the group. They are exhausting personalities. They like to make things about themselves - their ideas, their decisions, and their direction. Everyone else needs to get on board. 

This comes from a scarcity mindset, or what Liz Wiseman terms a Diminisher.

Those are both easy to spot, but it’s not our focus. 

What happens when we are the diminishers and don’t realize it? What if we don’t realize it because we are acting with sincerity and the intention of being multipliers? And to take it one step further, what if we’re following the advice we commonly find in management books? 

This is accidental diminisher territory and it’s a dangerous place to be. 

The Idea Guy

This is the person always coming up with new ideas and innovative solutions. They’ve got a hundred different ideas for everything. Give them a problem, they’ll come up with an idea for it. 

When the idea guy becomes a leader, he uses his ideas to create a vision for the team. The problem is that the idea guy can’t contain himself. 

One day he shows up with an idea to revamp the Sunday school. The team gets on board and starts working on it. Then the next week he shows up with an idea for a full-time school. The teach changes course and begins working on that. Then the next week he shows up with an idea for an after-school program instead. 

The flood of these ideas tends to overwhelm a team and they will struggle to keep up. They will learn to shut down around the idea guy and not work toward any of them. 

In this way, the idea guy accidentally diminishes the team around him. 

If you’re an idea guy, create a holding tank for your ideas. Write them down or track them somewhere. Only share them with the team when you’re ready for them to take action. Make sure to solicit ideas from your team as well around the task you are working on. 

Rapid Responder or Rescuer

The rapid responder is always on. Send an email at 2 am, and they will respond within 15 minutes. When someone is struggling, this person jumps in to fix it. 

Leaders want to be available and accessible. They want to do what they can to help their team succeed.  

While teams appreciate a leader stepping up to the plate, it can create an unhealthy sense of dependency. People will pull back when they know their efforts are not needed because the leader is always there to save the day. 

This is what often causes a leader to feel overwhelmed or have too much on their plate. 

Instead, adopt a strategy of waiting for team members to take the first crack before jumping in. Look to coach people through situations instead of doing it for them. It will feel tough to let go and empower others in this way, but it is a necessary adjustment to prevent burning out later. 

Optimist

Optimism is not only an essential leadership quality, it’s also the sunnah. 

In a world where almost every good effort is met with criticism and haters, optimism is a necessary component for leaders to instill in their teams. 

There is, however, a trap of falling into naive optimism. This is a person who loses touch with how to deal with problems. They have irrational overconfidence that things will always work out and not to sweat the small stuff. “Don’t worry about it” is the crutch they use to deal with any difficult issue. People lose touch with this leader and tune out. 

Balanced optimism means paying attention to the details, the problems, and the struggles. Find ways to appreciate the effort of people. Acknowledge and point out the possibilities of failure. You can plan for and identify potential failures while still maintaining an overall optimist outlook. 

Perfectionist

Let’s make sure we do things the right way. We need to do things with ihsan (excellence) and maintain high standards. 

We do see a lot of community work that gets ‘mailed in’ or suffers from low standards. A better effort and attention to detail is definitely required. 

When a leader is a perfectionist, it can make people feel unfairly criticized. It creates an element of “no matter what I do, it’s not good enough.” This leads to people becoming disheartened or losing interest. 

Leaders should work to set expectations early. Define what a successful outcome looks like. Clearly spell out an average effort looks like, what our target, looks like and what excellent looks like. Once you do that, rein in your desire to keep tweaking and perfecting, otherwise you will lose the buy-in of the team. 

Protector

This is a person who has such deep care and concern for the community and their own responsibility, that they do everything possible to avoid any type of failure or harm befalling them. 

This is a component of good leadership, especially when we consider the aspects of amana (trust) regarding spending donated funds or making decisions in an elected capacity on behalf of a community. 

Too much focus on protection can stagnate growth. We see this play out often when it comes to youth involvement. People point out their inexperience or propensity to fail, and thus fail to empower them. 

Having a protector attitude is needed when it comes to some big picture items such as compliance, governance, and institutional preservation. Outside of this, a leader with a protector mindset should look for ways to make safe spaces for people to fail. Give them lower-risk projects and allow them to learn from experience. Have more transparency with the organization around some of the challenges you deal with so they can better understand the risk assessments you are making. 

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Leadership development is an ongoing process. It is critical to be in a constant cycle of self-assessment and soliciting feedback so you can get an accurate representation of how people respond to your leadership.