The Top Signs of Poor Leadership by Olivia Durden; Reviewed by Michelle Seidel, B.Sc., LL.B., MBA; Updated March 06, 2019 Related Articles 15 Signs of Poor Management 2Solve Poor Leadership Skill Problems 35 Different Types of Leadership Styles 4What Are the Causes of Poor Workplace Communication? Leadership is one of the most important factors determining the success of a company. Poor leadership can seriously affect employee morale and even cause the company’s bottom line to plunge. Bad leadership leads to poor employee retention and demotivates the remaining employees, causing them to be much less productive than they would otherwise be. Bad Leadership Examples It is important to know what the traits of a bad leader are so that they can be noticed early enough and taken care of before the business suffers. When you can spot a bad leader, you can avoid the pitfalls that would make you a bad leader in your own business and also recognize it in your managers and strengthen your own leadership as well as that of your managers. Here are some prominent examples of bad leadership: There is No Team Chemistry If only one person in a team complains about the leader, then the problem is likely to be isolated and to exist only between the two of them. However, when multiple team members complain about the leader, and usually about the same things, as well as members of other departments and even clients, then you know something is wrong. Many leaders react to this by hiding their head in the sand and waiting for it to go away. Unfortunately, it likely won’t. Problems rarely go away before they are solved. If left unsolved, the problem will only get worse. Since team chemistry is very important in any office, poor leadership can lead to a breakdown of the team altogether, with some workers even leaving the company. This causes reduced productivity and a weakened bottom line. There is No Communication A bad leader will not listen to their subordinates. They do not value any input from their employees. They will typically ignore emails and messages from their employees and spend long periods away from the office. Such leaders will place a low priority on listening to their employees, even cutting them off when they are speaking in order to speak themselves. A poor leader will not have any regard for staff opinions, even if those opinions are coming from staff members with extensive skills and experience in the matter being discussed. As a result, they may miss opportunities to do things in better and more efficient ways. Poor leaders will also typically fail to pass on information to their employees about policies and procedures that they must follow and then often scold or punish employees when they fail to follow them. There is High Employee Turnover Employee turnover is a very strong sign of poor leadership. Employees are unlikely to leave the workplace if they are happy with the place and satisfied with the work they are doing. If these needs are not met, then the employees will leave at the earliest opportunity of greener pastures. A bad leader will not listen to employees who signal that something is wrong. This failure to pay attention often further demotivates employees, leading to unhappiness and dissatisfaction with their work. Even if the work itself is enjoyable to the employees, the work environment will be non-conducive to them, and they will leave as soon as they can. The Leader Tends to Micromanage A micromanager is simply a leader who can’t resist the temptation to control and direct the tiniest actions taken by employees. They want to be involved in just about everything their employees do, and the effect is stifling. On the one hand, a micromanager will feel satisfied because everything will be done just how they want it. On the other hand, micromanagement can breed resentment in the employees as they feel monitored as if they were children. They will feel a lack in both autonomy and responsibility, and they will come to resent the work that they do. Quite often, micromanagers are the way they are because they are insecure about their abilities, or they are simply afraid of giving up their sense of control. The Leader Has No Vision Employees enjoy working for a leader with a clear and persuasive vision and a well-defined way to get there. They buy into the vision more than anything else, in some cases even settling for much lower pay than they would get elsewhere simply because they can see that the company they are working for has a bright future, or they believe in its mission. When a leader lacks vision, he or she is likely to lack a lot of other important qualities as well, such as priorities, inspiration and focus. Because they do not have a sense of direction, their employees won’t have a sense of direction either, which will lead them to exhaustion and a lack of productivity. With an unfocused team taking on unproductive tasks, there is hardly any impact for the company, and it seems to wallow in stagnation. The result of this is usually high employee attrition. The Leader Has No Clear Expectations For Their Employees An employee that does not know what is expected of them can end up feeling frustrated, and this will ultimately affect how well they carry out the tasks assigned to them. A poor leader will not tell their employees the deadline for a project or might tell them but fail to tell them what their goals are for the project. Or they might keep moving the deadline around and leave the employees in a state of confusion. The details of the project might be vague, which makes it very hard for employees to know what is important and to set the right priorities as they carry out the project. The leader might also not assign tasks to different members of the team, leaving the team in utter confusion – dooming the project before it even begins. The Leader Has Favorites Of all the signs of a bad leader, this may be one of the hardest to notice. A bad leader will often have highly specific preferences for a particular style of work, a particular communication method or one approach to problem-solving over another. There is nothing wrong with being specific. However, it becomes poor leadership when it causes the leader to completely ignore the contribution of some team members and favor others instead. In some cases, the leader doesn’t even know that they are playing favorites. They are simply acting on their biases, and the resulting actions are skewed in a particular direction. In the worst case, the leader knows exactly what they are doing but continues to do it anyway. The Leader is a Bully This is the most obvious sign of a bad leader. A bad leader may bully and intimidate employees, threatening them with termination if they do not do the work to the leader’s satisfaction. Bad leaders will often scold their employees for their mistakes in public and even criticize them for aspects of their personality or appearance, rather than the work that they are doing. Employees who find themselves working in an office where the leader is a bully will often feel demoralized and leave as soon as they get an opportunity. Productivity will go down, and the bottom line will eventually follow. In the worst cases, the negative environment can cause extreme stress in employees and lead to negative psychological issue
