5 Ways Bad Leadership Can Destroy Your Business

1. Poor vision for the future

This is when CEO have a general idea of their business's ultimate vision -- maybe they want to sell X number of products by Y date -- yet they have no idea how to break that vision into daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual benchmarks. They couldn't tell you how many products they need to sell on a monthly basis, or how many leads they need to generate per month from their marketing campaigns.

The other scenario is when entrepreneurs know what key performance indicators their business has to hit and by when. They become so infatuated with their big goal that they'll do anything to sell off their product or service, even if that means selling to the wrong target audience who wouldn't get the value or the benefit of the product. That only leads to customer complaints, frustration and overworked customer support.

You have to ask yourself, what do you want your business to look like? And by when? Those are the first two questions you need to answer if you want to construct a clear vision for your business. That vision gives us a clear objective to work toward for years to come.

2. Not investing in your team's development

So many entrepreneurs, both new and experienced, expect to hire team members that are pre-installed with their same work ethic, resilience and skill set.

But, those false expectations often lead to animosity between entrepreneurs and their employees. That's how toxic work cultures emerge: The business owner doesn't want to fire the employee, while the employee sticks around out of fear of change. Soon, those feelings of resentment deepen and ultimately, either the entrepreneur gets frustrated enough to fire the employee, or the dissatisfied employee quits on them.

That's why you need to hire team members, not employees. Team members are those willing to devote their time and energy to your vision. As a leader, your job is to invest in your team's personal development so they can perform at their absolute best as team members, not employees.

How do I invest in my team? I pay for them to go to the best conferences and seminars out there so they can learn new skills. When they get back, they present what they learned to the rest of our team, and we talk about how we can apply what they learned to our business. Sometimes I even hire experts to teach our team new skills and strategies so that our team levels up as a whole.

3. Hanging on to a toxic employee

The worst thing you could do for your business is hang on to a toxic employee. That's because when you keep around an underperforming employee, you send a message to the rest of your team that you tolerate mediocrity. Eventually everyone else on your team plays down to that level, too.

4. Lack of communication

Poor communication happens for two reasons: because entrepreneurs make assumptions about their team members, and because they don't want to hurt their team members' feelings. 

If someone assumes that one of their team members knows what she's doing, yet in reality that team member is clueless, then the boss begins to feel resentment and frustration toward that person -- all because no communication was initially established between the two parties. 

Yet, so many entrepreneurs also fail to have tough talks with their team members. They don't have it in them to call out something a specific team member needs to do better, and they therefore miss the chance to coach that person up to a higher level.

5. Indecision

Entrepreneurs who are indecisive cost their businesses more money than those who are decisive but make the wrong decisions.

As an entrepreneur, you make a lot of decisions on a daily basis. It's OK if a lot of those decisions end up being the wrong decisions; all you have to do is pivot and course correct.

So, why is that so hard for entrepreneurs to grasp? It's because they have a fear of failure. They don't want to look stupid in front of everyone else. The irony is that you actually look better in the eyes of others when you can rebound after a bad decision.

Edited by: 浪子

Bibliography

Bedros Keuilian. (2018). 5 Ways Bad Leadership Can Destroy Your Business. Retrieved from 
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/318472