EP06: Leadership Pitfalls

Leadership flaws come in many forms, and through mistakes, leaders learn how to become better. Join us for another enlightening episode as we give you the most frequent pitfalls leaders should overcome. This show contains powerful information to help you transform into the kind of leader you must be, so listen in!

Key Takeaways To Listen For

• The importance of task delegation and strategic planning
• Why you should develop a sense of urgency
• Simple ways to vent your frustrations
• Integrity: Its concept, examples, and significance
• The power of intent listening and communication
• Healthy effects of moving out of isolation as a leader

Resources mentioned in this episode
Steve Jobs

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Transcript

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Dr. Nate Salah:

[00:00:00]
When we say ‘yes’ too often, then what happens? Our ability to achieve what we have committed to achieving begins to diminish and the quality of the work that we do begins to diminish because we've over-committed. We've said yes, too much. Hello, my friend, welcome to this last installment of our six-part series on leadership.

[00:00:24]
And this course is designed to give a foundation for leadership and really set up the rest of the episodes and you'll be hearing more of what I've been sharing in these six episodes. Of course, this is number six throughout the entire podcast. So you'll hear me revisit these concepts, go deeper in these concepts and ultimately share with you how we can lead not only effectively, but transformationally and to serve well in our plight to aim for greatness.

[00:00:58]
Well, if you're watching this on YouTube or any of our other video platforms. You've seen me in my home office, this is where I call home when I'm not in any of my other offices and so this is where I've shot these episodes. I'll be in this area in other episodes. Sometimes we'll be in the studio, especially when we've got guests and we've got co-host.

[00:01:22]
So, stay tuned for all of the amazing episodes as we pour into you with 100% free content on your leadership journey, it's all about staying in the trenches and supporting you, encouraging you, and providing you with the tools to thrive as a leader, to live the irresistible offer of a life, and then share that irresistible offer of a life with others around you and your business, in your family in your life.

[00:01:50]
And so, you'll be able to go to our website, greatsummit.com, and get tons of free resources as well as notes of the shows, and also be able to connect with us when it comes to our leadership development groups, our workshops, and all those amazing opportunities to join the community.

[00:02:10]
So here we are, episode six, the very last installment, and this episode is about the Pitfalls that we face as leaders and their pitfalls that I've seen again and again, in leadership, in business leadership and family leadership in general, life and community and different areas of leadership to where we express influence.

[00:02:33]
So, I'm gonna go through my Top 10. Now there's lots of other pitfalls, but I'm just gonna go through 10 of them that I'd like to share with you and inevitably some of these pitfalls, you will recognize either in yourself or in others that you've followed or that you've witnessed their leadership. And it's not that everyone ever arrives 100%.

[00:02:57]
Sometimes we're strong in an area and sometimes we miss it and that's okay. As long as we continue to progress because remember my friend leadership is about progress. it's about change and it starts with a change in us and so the very first pitfall that I've seen leaders fall into time and time again, is that Leaders are Doers.

[00:03:21]
And oftentimes we find ourselves and boy, am I guilty as charged of not delegating and elevating. I am a doer through and through, and I spend so much time actually performing laborist tasks when I know that I can delegate those tasks out and elevate, I've got this phrase I use, do what you do best and outsource the rest.

[00:03:49]
There are activities that are outside of your genius zone that you're likely doing right now and those activities are keeping you from really just blossoming in your genius zone. You say, well, Nate, there's things that I'm doing that right now I've got no one to help me. Well, that's understandable.

[00:04:08]
You can do that, but it's not sustainable for scaling your leadership and growing because ultimately leadership involves people and you've got to be able to release, let go, so that, you can effectively lead others. And again, like I said, I am so familiar with this because I've spent so many years in the trenches doing the technical work and not developing the human skills, if you will, to grow my organizations. 

[00:04:41]
And I've had to learn the hard way. I mean, over the years, pull back and invest in people, that's number one. So delegation, am I taking on too much of myself and we will actually another number, number five, when we get to number five, we'll talk a little bit more about that in a different way.

[00:05:00]
That's number one, number two, Planning, many leaders have a Ready, Fire, Aim approach instead of a Ready, Aim, Fire approach and there's this lack of focus on what are all the steps that I need to take to make my vision real. The true strategic planning piece sometimes gets left behind and we know who we are.

[00:05:29]
We get ahead of ourselves and then what happens? Well, we miss things that are really critically important. I think about how engineering works and the value of having a detailed plan in order, do you say, well, what about a business plan? Do I need a business plan? And to be successful because some business owners, they don't have a business plan and they make it. Well, yes, but is it better to lay out the groundwork for my vision, my mission, my values, my strategic opportunities in the marketplace, my threats, my opportunities, my strengths, my weaknesses? Of course, that's a SWOT analysis. We'll talk about more of that later.

[00:06:16]
Is it important to lay out what my operational model might look like? My human resource model, my financial model, my forecasts. All of those pieces, my marketing model, my advertising budget, my costs per acquisition of clients. You know, my customer acquisition costs all of those pieces. When we plan out those pieces, we can look for holes in that and we don't have to plan it on ourselves.

[00:06:45]
You can, others can help us as well. Remember the first delegation, but yeah, so this, and that's in business. What about my family planning? What about planning for the future? You know, if I've got a toddler at home, what does that future look like for my toddler? When they're a teenager, how am I preparing them?

[00:07:06]
Laying the groundwork, the foundation for their lives? Am I helping them to live a wise life? In fact, I remember when our son was little, we would say when he would make a mistake, we would ask them if that was a wise or foolish choice and you'll hear about this in future episodes of more detail in the story and getting him into the mind work and the framework of thinking in wisdom because one day, he'll be gone on his own and he won't have mommy and daddy there to ask him those questions.

[00:07:39]
But if we lay the foundation and plan for the future, then we will be able to have an impact later because we've laid a foundation for the possibility. So, when he's preparing to make a decision, our prayer and our hope is that he'll remember, wow, is this going to be a wise or foolish choice in my life?

[00:08:00]
And I hope he chooses wisdom and so that's the idea of planning so essential, so important, but many leaders, a huge pitfall for many leaders. So, we don't take the time out to plan and possibly, and of course, one of the reasons is our lives are so busy and we'll talk about that again on number five and we end up not really just stopping, slowing down and taking advantage of proper planning.

[00:08:29]
Number three, the other side of Ready, Fire, Aim is a lack of Sense of Urgency, which is problematic because if you think, well, I'm just gonna go into this because I'm feeling like I have a sense of urgency, but then you don't have a sense of urgency when it comes to proper planning. That is a problem in, in and of itself.

[00:08:52]
But there's other kinds of lack of sense of urgencies. When I'm thinking about my day, I'm thinking about the sense of urgency to slow down and think about how many days I actually have left and I know this might sound morbid, but right now someone is having their unexpected last moment. In fact, I just got a text this morning and it was so sad, a dear friend had passed on and I looked at the text and I responded to a friend and said, boy, that really puts in a perspective that the small stuff is really just small stuff and because that is my perspective. And I'll talk more about this later on, future episodes. I have more of a sense of urgency to live fully today.

[00:09:43]
Because this recording may be my very last moments, our time together today. I don't know. And so with that in mind, I wanna give my very best for every interaction I have and I have a sense of urgency in that because every moment could be my unexpected last moment. So, that sense of urgency, it guides my behavior.

[00:10:10]
It guides my accountants, it helps me to overcome really the nuances of my day and to live with more gratitude and appreciation. So, that sense of urgency to live fully is manifested because I may not have a year, a 10 years, 20 year, I might, we might be having these conversations over the next 10, 20, 30 years, but we might not, and it's not guaranteed.

[00:10:39]
Only this moment is guaranteed this sight of heaven. So, having a sense of urgency to live fully because this moment maybe my only moment left guides my every day as a leader and so many leaders miss it because they, they think that, this life might just continue to go on and we don't know and in fact, I'll talk more about that with when I talk about Steve Jobs because he had a terminal illness and he recognized that that finiteness of life was he held it more dearly and more preciously.

[00:11:16]
And he made better choices, which leads me into number four, Bottling frustrations, Character issues, Integrity. We're gonna talk through this number four. So when we bottle in our frustrations, because we have a lack of outlets for ourselves. You know, I've seen leaders so many times just stuff it, instead of speaking it out, instead of finding ways to deal with those frustrations through community, through prayers, through self-care and exercise and proper diet and things like that. And just, and writing, if you're frustrated with someone, write a letter to them and maybe don't even send it, take the, we call it the Abraham Lincoln approach to get the frustrations out.

[00:12:10]
And those frustrations will stifle, stifle your progress and they show. Now it doesn't mean that it's not okay to be frustrated, It's totally okay to be frustrated at times and to accept and to be okay with just having emotion, but let it out and then move on because remember number three was that we didn't know how many more moments we had, so let's not give up and just squander that precious time in frustration.

[00:12:45]
Number five is an area that I see so many leaders fall into this pitfall, this trap of Overcommitting, saying yes, too many times. It's really a lack of focus. The lack of focus can keep us from achieving what we desire to achieve really what's in our vision in our lane and what will happen is, is that as your leadership improves your value level increases in the marketplace.

[00:13:16]
And as that value increases because you can help people solve problems. It gives greater utility. You'll hear me use that word on this show, this utility, this value that you bring to the marketplace, whether it's business or other areas will. I mean, sometimes it can be your community, nonprofits, your church. People will start asking you to help them more.

[00:13:40]
And of course, as leaders, we want to give more of ourselves. The problem is there's only so much to give and when we say yes too often, then what happens then our ability to achieve what we have committed to achieving begins to diminish and the quality of the work that we do begins to diminish because we've overcommitted, we've said ‘yes’ too much.

[00:14:07]
And it's out of good intentions, but we know what that old saying about the road to hell is paved with. Right? Good intentions. And not necessarily that's the case, but it's just a saying, which means that there's lots of problems when we have good intentions, but it ultimately leads us to a worse future state.

[00:14:27]
So, I think of a colleague of mine who really wanted to get work done, and he really wanted to help and he just said yes, all the time. And then, so a project that he would say, well, this will take me a week to do actually took three weeks to do and sometimes longer. So, I would try to help this individual to set better expectations and learn to say ‘no’. In fact, it was Steve Jobs who said, focus is saying ‘no’ to things you would absolutely love to do. Can you imagine that? Saying ‘no’ to things you would absolutely love to do? I'll give you an example, I was recently invited to join a board and of an organization that I truly, truly care about and I prayerfully considered it. And I just was so passionate about this group, but it didn't fit my vision and I was preparing to launch our podcast and I spoke with a few different mentors and I came up with the answer as much as I would love to do it. I had to say, no, it was really difficult. I wanted to say yes, so, so badly.

[00:15:38]
But what happened when I said, no, I was liberated saying no is liberating, it's freeing, and sometimes that first, no is the most difficult one, and what it does is it frees me. It frees me to walk in integrity and true commitment. Which really leads into number six, which are character issues, lack of integrity, misplaced ambition.

[00:16:04]
We're gonna talk a little bit about that because the response to saying no is that I have the integrity to follow through on my commitments that I've already made and so when we talk about integrity, what is integrity? It's a, where we toss around a lot. You'll hear me talk about it quite a bit on the show because it's critically important in leadership to have strong character.

[00:16:32]
We know leaders who do not have good character, who do not have integrity are not trustworthy and integrity is only one aspect of trust and I'll go through a number of 'em on the show. But Integrity, I view it as this, the word integrity and integer sheer etymology. What's that $5 word? They share language and usage and historical language.

[00:16:56]
So, the integer little math trivia for you is a whole number, it's undivided 1, 5, 3, 5, 7. You can't divide it like you could a nine, you can divide a nine by three. Right? And so an integer is undivided and to have integrity is to be undivided it's to be whole, which means in certain context and settings, that your word is whole.

[00:17:25]
When you speak, you speak the truth and you speak in a way that's not divided. In other words, well, I'm gonna tell you this, but I'm gonna do something different. That's divided, that's not it's uncommitted. Think about a ship, the integrity of the hull. We talk about an integrity, the hull has integrity. What happens when a ship's integrity is breached?

[00:17:49]
The integrity of the hull is you may have heard that term. The hull has been breached, the integrity of the hull, which means we have problems because the integrity of the hull, it carries weight in dispersing, just how strong it is to withstand any type of issues coming in, such as water. Right? So, if it's been breached, then water can come in, and then it can sink the ship.

[00:18:16]
And just in the same way with our leadership, if we have a lack of integrity if our leaderships hull. If the integrity has been breached, it's quite possible that our ship, our leadership will sink it's that important and we've seen it. We've seen it in our communities, in our churches, in our government, in our organizations, in our institutions.

[00:18:40]
We've seen leaders sink because of lack of integrity. So, hold fast to your integrity. It's so critical, I can't stress it enough. If you're not there, take a step today. This is a huge pitfall for leadership and followers need us to walk in integrity. Number seven, some leaders are just plain Unmotivated to Follow through.

[00:19:11]
They give up, I've seen this time and time again at the cusp of a major breakthrough and they see the challenges. They see the issues mounting up and they don't follow through. Motivation is an essential aspect of leadership and it's an essential aspect of showing followers of modeling. If you will, what is possible in the face of adversity?

[00:19:44]
In the face of adversity, we must adapt and overcome. You'll hear me say that one again too. Do not give up when you are so close to a breakthrough, I'm gonna tell you what happens when we do not give up. And I'm gonna give you some strategies on how to not give up. It's a huge pitfall that I see. This lack of follow through and the ‘I can't model’, it's really a lack of self-efficacy and sometimes it's a blaming, oh, well, this went wrong and this went wrong and this went wrong and it's, I couldn't control all these things.

[00:20:22]
And that does happen, things do go wrong that are beyond my control, and sometimes I have to make a change. In other words, I have to sometimes close a business, end a relationship. I'm not talking about that in terms of giving up, but follow through and follow through strong, give it everything and just because you closed a business or you ended a relationship or something changed to where that had to stop, that doesn't mean that you've given up.

[00:20:46]
That simply means that you've had to make a change. So, but stay the course; finish strong. Don't give up. Remember, failure's not final it's feedback. It's only final when we give up. Number eight, this is another big one, Poor communication, Poor listening, Poor empathy, Lack of care, Being out of touch. All of these go hand in hand in leadership.

[00:21:14]
I've seen so many leaders just miss it with communication and communication doesn't start with speaking. It starts with listening and truly listening and I've been guilty of this, where I do not, I have not given my undivided attention. There will be an episode on this, undivided attention, really focusing because our minds have so much stimuli and there's so many things going on in the moment, but real true effective communication begins with listening.

[00:21:45]
And then it leads into care and empathy for those I'm listening to. So that I can then affect positive change and so, so many leaders are completely out of touch because they're not thinking about their followers. All they're thinking about is their own agenda and I don't want you to be that leader.

[00:22:08]
You're not gonna be that leader and I guarantee that if we can start with listening and empathy and true empathy, think, well, I'm not very empathetic. There was a long time in my own life when I suffered from a lack of empathy. Thank goodness for my spouse, who helped me to overcome that over the years, because I was always thinking about, well, I'm just gonna work at it from a strictly business perspective where I don't have any emotion, any care for their needs.

[00:22:35]
It's all about my end result and eventually I began to change to someone who actually had a deep desire to help others solve their problems and really that's so much what leadership is, s solution orientation around the problems of others. Remember, we talked about that. If you hadn't heard some of the previous episodes go back and listen, because it's so critical because then we become an advocate and an ally rather than an adversary.

[00:23:09]
So, great communication, what does it begin with? Listening, and we become better communicators in that way. And then, we can share our vision and we can share how to motivate, how to encourage, how to Edify others along this journey. Number nine, so many leaders, they get caught in the weeds. They have a Lack of what we call Foresight.

[00:23:35]
And foresight in leadership is essential because foresight and vision go hand in hand, being able to envision what's coming around the bend and have conversations around it. But we spend so much time what we call, ‘in the weeds’ and ‘in the weeds’ is in technical work or in the immediate problem and putting out immediate fires.

[00:23:54]
And while we need to do that, we need to come up for air and remember the trajectory where we're going as leaders because if we do not come up for air and have a vision of what foresight might look like, we could go off track and we could forget what's most important and then we fall back into the frustration and the other aspects that we were talking about earlier, Number 10, here we go.

[00:24:21]
The last pitfall that I see, I know there's many, many others, but these are 10 solid ones is Isolation. Many leaders become isolated. They don't allow a community to invest in them and through peers, through mentors. The isolation factor is one way where leaders can totally get sidelined and really get kicked out of the game of growth and, and improvement in their own leadership.

[00:24:56]
I've been so fortunate to be a part of a group and lead the mastermind, my leadership elite group, and I found that simply through connection and sharpening one another. That these individuals are able to release their burdens and aim higher and support one another and it's just amazing what happens when we're not isolated.

[00:25:19]
So, I've been isolated before, Oh, it's terrible. Especially during these COVID years, isolation, go, of course, go hand in hand with mental illness, depression, anxiety, all of those factors. So, if you're in a position right now to where you're isolated, for whatever reason you don't have to be, and here's another thing you can be around people and still be isolated.

[00:25:41]
You know, what we're talking about is actually having transparent discussion, communication, sharing your burdens, sharing your triumphs and supporting one another and encouraging one another. I would strongly encourage you to invest and get connected with a group of other leaders who share your vision.

[00:26:04]
Doesn't have to be in the same industry, diversity works great. In fact, in our group, it's a completely diverse group of different industry leaders. But what I've found is amazing. In fact, just had a call yesterday on how we deal with stress. What's stressing us out in our lives and how we move through that?

[00:26:27]
And just the breakthroughs in that moment on that call and we weren't even in person, we were on a zoom call. It totally blessed me, it encouraged me, it even helped me as a leader to have a different outlook, a different perspective and approach the day with victory instead of misery. That's the power of moving out of isolation and into community and fellowship.

[00:26:56]
So, I would strongly encourage you today to begin to open that door. You say, well, Nate, I don't even know where to go. Go online, do some research on masterminds in your area, in your region or have conversations with others. In fact, we'll be talking about that more, go to the website. We'll have resources for you there on how to connect with others in a community and begin to thrive.

[00:27:23]
That's my top 10, my friend, of course, there are many more. We'll cover them on the podcast, but if you can just take one of these, one of these 10, and begin to make a difference and a change in your own life, and own that change, that will be progress, and you will be a leader who will ultimately begin to master your context rather than surrender to it.

[00:27:48]
So, glad we had this time together, pray wonders for your day. God bless. Well, my friend, thank you for joining me on this episode of a Call to Leadership. If you've been listening, you've probably heard me talk about our accounting and advisory business, and this show was actually born out of that business, those relationships, I found that entrepreneurs and professionals. We're missing aspects of their leadership that fed into their bottom line and helped their businesses be successful. So, I'm so thankful that I've had all those years in that area to feed into this and the truth is that so many people still need accounting and advisory help, and they don't know where to go.

[00:28:31]
If you're in that place where you feel, oh my goodness, my tax person or my accountant, I can't find them or maybe the service wasn't up to my expectations, do not despair. I'll leave how you can find us in the show notes and one of my team members can do some discovery and help you along your journey. You're not alone my friend, you always have help. I'm Dr. Nate Salah, can't wait to see you on the next show of a Call to Leadership.