You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Know
“The problem with incompetence is its inability to recognize itself.”
Orrin Woodward
According to Terry LaMasters the 8 characteristics of incompetent leadership:
1. Poor Communication Skills
Don’t understand that communication bi-directional; they neglect opportunities to listen to peers.
2. Weak Leadership Capabilities
Lack of confidence or resolve to have necessary but often difficult conversations. Not effectively delegating responsibility. This is often due to being insecure themselves. Fail to translate vision into daily activities. This leads to micro-management of activities which hinders growth, effectiveness, and team development.
3. Not Willing to Change
Change is both difficult and painful, but effective leaders know how to handle it. Incompetent leaders are either unable or unwilling to adapt to change. This type of unyielding creates panic when unexpected circumstances arise.
4. Poor Relationship Building
Good relationship builders understand patience and are willing to invest into others with encouragement over criticism. Leaders who are poor at building relationships will not set culture, don’t understand diversity is a benefit and crucial to success, fail to respect team members involvement, and are usually emotional when times are difficult.
5. Ineffective Task Management
Effective task managers establish priorities and create margin. Activities that detract or divert attention away from their priorities are stopped. Team members must be given task they can accomplish. Ineffective leaders don’t ask for help when they need it, procrastinate, and work is rarely satisfying. Blame is passed to others rather than accepted.
6. Lack Results
Insufficient results can be a result of many different causes such as funding, lack of resources, or unreal expectations. Some leaders lack the technical knowledge to ensure results. This leader will find plenty of reasons not to make a decision. Leaders who lack results or are unable to achieve team successes are not always clear about what they want or need and unable to overcome adversity.
7. Poor Leadership Development of Others
Leaders who face a challenge in the development of others don’t generally make learning opportunities available. They may feel threatened by the team members with greater ability than their own.
8. Poor Leadership Development of Themselves
Poor leadership is often a result of failure to develop the required skills such as communication, management, planning, developing vision, and discipline. Poor leadership will result in mediocre results, untrained people who are unhappy, insecure leaders, and an organization with a questionable future. For growth and change to happen, a leader must constantly be learning.
Side Points
The Dilbert principle is a concept in management developed by Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert, which states that companies tend to systematically promote incompetent employees to management to get them out of the workflow.
The Dilbert principle is inspired by the Peter Principle, which holds that employees are promoted based on success in their current position until they reach their "level of incompetence" and are no longer promoted. Under the Dilbert principle, employees who were never competent are promoted to management to limit the damage they can do.
Additional Reading
The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong by Laurence J. Peter And Raymond Hull
Becoming a Manager: How New Managers Master the Challenges of Leadership by Linda A. Hill
Points of Reflection
“There are few things more dangerous than a mixture of power, arrogance and incompetence.”
Bob Herbert
“Books are the training weights of the mind.”
Epictetus