Leadership Pitfalls and Positives

How to avoid falling into the trap of formulaic leadership.

There are a lot of tools, tips and techniques that you can use in order to be a better leader, however, none of them are silver bullets. The truth is that nothing beats being a good person with genuine care for the performance, wellbeing and progression of the people around you. This should be the basis of anyone’s leadership practice. From there, any tools or tips are learning suggestions only. 

While on some level we all know that there is no magical, one-size-fits-all formula for successful leadership, I continue to see good ideas to improve leadership forced into one. As soon as well-meaning strategies are turned into a formula, they lose their effect. 

Nothing beats being a good person with genuine care for the performance, wellbeing and progression of the people around you.

– Zoe Dryden

Let me give you just a few examples of where I have seen well-meaning and otherwise solid leadership advice go this way:

1. Encourage versus correct

Most of us now know that encouragement is far more effective in helping people grow than correction. However, few of us have learned how to encourage people well. Encouragement does not mean avoiding correcting anyone ever – there is a time and place for this too. However, corrective conversations are a tool to be wielded wisely; the sting of corrective feedback can take work to recover from. In an attempt to implement this leadership advice “effectively”, I have seen a performance improvement plan require that managers list five compliments for each corrective criticism. This is an example of turning ideas around encouragement into a formula that ends up depersonalising the interaction and defeating the entire point. 

A far better approach is to simply practice encouraging people – being specific about the positive things you see, and providing clear and on-target feedback delivered in the right time and place. 

2. Find out an employee’s intention in working with you

I often suggest that leaders find out why someone has chosen to work with them or their organisation. You simply cannot grow, or get behind, someone if this is not what they also want. It also helps to understand people’s aspirations. However, I’ve seen managers awkwardly put people on the spot in meetings by asking them, in front of others, about their goals and intentions. This is, once again, turning the lesson into a formula and it will (and does) go badly.

Sometimes these are questions a person has never been asked or even thought about before, so be sensitive. Pick your timing and ask it in a natural and connected way, in your own words. You might want to give them the opportunity to think about it before they’re expected to share their answer with you. But also, you need to have cultivated an environment where any response they give you can be honest and accepted without judgement, because there is a strong inherent aspect of people’s conditioning that seeks to gain approval, and avoid disapproval, from authority figures. 

3. Get to know your people – ask personal questions.

This is a great tip; people like to work with those they like, and it’s important for wellbeing at work that we feel like our managers and colleagues care about us. Yet, attempts here are only effective if they are genuine. I have seen managers start meetings with a formulaic approach –  asking certain cursory questions, perhaps spanning family or holiday plans, as though they are going through a time-trial, tick-box exercise. It can feel so awkward and insincere.

Only you can bring real and truly authentic care to the pursuit of getting to know others. If that isn’t there, then focus on the tasks at hand. In this case, you are better to ditch the small talk and simply start the meeting.  

4. How should I address this issue? I need to get the words right.

I am often asked how I’d discuss certain things with employees or other stakeholders – what words I would use. The risk I always face when I make a suggestion, or answer these sorts of questions, is that the manager runs away and uses my words verbatim. Again, intention is important here. If a manager’s intention is in the right place, the exact words they use – or the so-called ‘correctness’ of such words – matters very little.

As a leader, you can seek out tips and ideas, or learn others’ reasons for why they’d approach things a certain way – and reflect on or integrate these insights – but, if you just take someone else’s words, you’re going to have a weird and insincere conversation unfold.  

5. I need to watch my body language and the body language of others.

I have seen body language turned into such a formula that it makes me cringe. X seconds of eye contact here. Cheesy smile and open-armed gesture there. Showing up effectively as a leader is far less a matter of how you shake a hand, or whether you make eye contact for the right amount of time, and far more about starting to be aware of the impression you leave and being deliberate with this. Are you paying attention? Are you organised and interested? Are you keen to meet the person sitting in front of you? Do you realise there is a person sitting in front of you? Because people can feel this.

Various researchers, such as Albert Mehrabian, suggest that non-verbal communication forms 70-90% of the communication message and this observation has empowered a great deal of focus on body language. What can be missing from the interpretation of some of this work though is that there is no formula for getting the “right” body language; instead, it is about genuinely coming from the right place. Again, people can feel this. Care to be there to connect and you won’t have to construct the rest of what your body is doing.  

If you want to be a good leader there are absolutely qualities you can develop and practice. Practice open-minded and non-judgemental enquiry. Practice truly listening. Practice being interested. Skill-build your ability to make friends and connections. But do not seek a formula for leadership. Don’t ask your team the rote questions you read in a book. People can detect insincerity a mile away, and formula-following makes you appear insincere. The most important part of anything that you bring into your leadership practice is that you integrate it naturally. What we really want in good leadership is a sincere human doing the best they can, while representing the shared intentions and purpose of the group they are leading. For support in this area, we are really talking about a self-awareness and personal growth – not mimicry or shortcuts.