7 Managerial Sins

Below you will find my variation for a subject of managerial sins.

1. Lack of courage.

Courage is the first of the human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all the others.
~Winston Churchill

Courage attract and inspire other people. It is building respect, trust and spirit in organisation. It affect all aspects in organisation. Great ideas, could be killed by lack of courage. Courage is a factor which helps to avoid rest of the sins mentioned below. Where is no courage, there is no leadership. Where is no leadership, there is no success.

Tip: If you see lack of courage in top management – look for another job.

2. Wishful thinking.

Great minds have purposes; others have wishes. ~Washington Irving

Ignoring facts, expecting impossible, waiting for miracles. These are typical symptoms of disease which I call “Wishful thinking”. Creative accountancy is a typical example of this sin (from controlling it become PR tool).  Ignoring facts, focusing on everything but not on a root of a problems, in a worse case creating virtual problems – all of this is lead sooner or later to a crisis.

Tip: Promote diversification open discussion and courage. It will not allow to spread this disease in your company.

3. Lack of honesty.

Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist.  ~Mary Kay Ash

Honesty needs courage, maturity and integrity. These values are important in managing life and managing business. No meter if you are preparing new marketing campaign, have yearly evaluation meeting or have difficult discussion with your boss – be honest.

Tip: Focus on honesty during recruitment process. You will avoid many problems in the future.

4. Indecisiveness.

Indecision and delays are the parents of failure. ~George Canning 

One of the key attributes of manager. In fact, this is core of the manager’s job – to take decisions. It is paradox, that indecisiveness is very often hidden behind…. “extreme decisiveness” . We are all knowing this case. Decisions are taken on every subject (new font in corporate email, new menu in canteen, new wall colors in the office – name it by yourself) but not on solving the truth business problems. True decisions are postponed. One of the typical symptoms is micromanaging, expanded reporting, plenty of meetings – naming only few. All of this allowing indecisive decision makers to hide their indecisiveness.

Tip: Do not rush. Think about every aspect of decision which you are taking. Consult with others.  But focus on taking real decisions, which are moving business forward. Make a deadline for taking decision and stick with this.

5. Lack of communication.

Bad human communication leaves us less room to grow. ~Rowan D. Williams 

Very often, people who are talking about open and honest communication are the worse communicators. It is easy to be open with others when you are communicating good things. It is much more difficult when you have to announce bad or not popular it is much more difficult to stand the ground. True leader builds trust by communicating not by avoiding communication. Not telling anything or worse, not telling truth – demolish morale, impair trust in leadership and allow people to fulfill this communication gap with their own “truths”. Instead of focusing on hard work to go through crisis, people are focusing on guessing what boss is not telling.

Tip: If you do not know – simply ask. Challenge with a questions. There is nothing to lose.  There are no stupid questions. Only stupid answers. Or worse – lack of answers.

6. Not performing.

An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises. ~Mae West

You know this type of people. Hours are telling you what they will do, what should be done. They developed an incredible skill sets – to hide lack of performance behind circumstances and others faults. Very often these kind of people have very high EQ which allow them to be covered by other team members.

Tip: Set up very strict controlling mechanisms and regularly review performance members of your team. And if somebody is permanently under-performing have no scruples to get rid such individual.

7. Short term thinking.

Leadership is, among other things, the ability to inflict pain and get away with it – short-term pain for long-term gain. ~George Will 

It is easy to find a thousands reasons for short-term benefit against long-term value creation. Especially that one of the common techniques used by non-performances is to tell on how bright and successful future their are working on. If mission and vision of the company are not clearly defined and communicated (internally and externally) then it is very easy to be trapped in short-term thinking. Mission and vision of the company are the compass, which hold the company on proper course during difficult times.

Tip: Define and communicate mission and vision of the company. Then there will be no doubt to every member of the team what is right thing to do.

Conclusion

We are all sinners. We are only human beings. However good manager, should have a distance to his actions, behaviors and to his or her managerial sins. That is why to have a coach can help. Somebody can ring alarm bell very early to avoid deadly sinning.

What to do if you already have sinned? Accept your fault, apologise and ask for forgiveness. But more important – do not sin again.