7 Temptations Leaders Face and Why They Make You an Ineffective Leader

#1 – Thinking or believing you know it all – You don’t know it all and people don’t want a leader who thinks he does. If you know it all, why do you need anyone else on the team? Why do you need followers. People want to be a part of something where they contribute, think, create and make a difference.

#2 – Not asking for help – Pride is one of the biggest reasons for failure in leadership. When you need help, go get it. Don’t let pride get in the way of making the best decisions for your team and organization. Asking for help is a sign of strength and humility. Not asking for help is a sign of pride and selfishness. Be humble. Ask for help and lead.

#3 – Fear – Letting fear determine how you lead and make decisions keeps you in the status quo. Standing still. Never making progress. Fear is a voice that will tell you “You can’t. You won’t. You don’t deserve it. It’s too risky. No one will listen.” Author Steven Pressfield refers to this as the resistance. Resist the resistance.

#4 – Content and complacent – Contentment sits in the corner and waits. It waits for everyone else to do something. To go. To make a difference. Being content keeps you average. Content is comfortable. Complacent. Unchallenged. Satisfied. Not hungry. Good enough is good enough. No it’s not! Letting things just stay where they are is not acceptable. Battle the temptation to let this happen.

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#5 – Trying to do it all – Leaders who try to do it all don’t trust their people. If they did, they wouldn’t try to do it all. It’s that simple. Learn the power of delegation. Make it a part of your company culture. When you delegate, you can do exponentially more with your time. If someone else can do a task as good or better than you, let them do it. You can’t do everything. It’s a lie you tell yourself. Tell yourself something else. Delegate and don’t try to do everything. Let your people contribute. Use their minds, skills and abilities. What they bring to work.

#6 – Blaming others and making excuses – Author John G. Miller has an entire book about personal accountability, The QBQ. Every organization should require everyone to read this book. Leaders need to own their jobs. When you have success, give your people credit. When you fail, do as author, Jim Collins states, look in the mirror. Don’t finger poing and blame. Don’t make excuses. No one cares. Results matter. Excuses don’t count. They are boring and average. It’s easy to do what’s easy (blame and point fingers). What matters is doing what’s right. Owning responsibility and accountability.

#7 – Wasting time – Everyone wants your attention. Today’s society makes it real easy to wast time. Social media, ineffective meetings, gossip, surfing the internet, blogging wars and much more. All of these present themselves every day. It’s easy to find ways to waste time. Because it’s easy to waste time it makes it hard to focus your attention on what really matters. Just turn on your device of choice. Temptations abound. You can choose to waste your time or invest it. Everything seems urgent. It’s not. Focus your time on what’s important but not urgent in the moment.

1. Building relationships
2. Mentoring
3. Self-development
4. Building trust
5. Accomplishing small wins that build confidence
6. Vision casting
7. Motivating and communicating
8. Hiring and keeping great people
9. Delegating

Temptations are everywhere. Leaders face them every day. Learn how to recognize and control temptations. Don’t let temptations minimize your effectiveness. You can’t stop temptations but you can control them. You can choose to fight through them and lead.

What other temptations do you deal with every day as a leader? How do you handle them?