Are these fatal flaws holding you back from being an effective leader in your organization?

In the book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, the author Marshall Goldsmith identifies the following flaws in leader’s which stunt their leadership development:

1. Winning too much
2. Adding too much value
3. Passing judgments
4. Making destructive comments
5. Starting with “No”, “But” or “However”
6. Telling the world how smart we are
7. Speaking when angry
8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”
9. Withholding information
10. Failing to give proper recognition
11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve
12. Making excuses
13. Clinging to the past
14. Playing favorites
15. Refusing to express regret
16. Not listening
17. Failing to express gratitude
18. Punishing the messenger
19. Passing the buck
20. An excessive need to be “me”

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think I do these things, do I?  Who says winning is ever "too much".  I thought being a leader meant being a "winner" -- so how can this be a bad thing?  How can adding too much value be a fatal flaw as a leader?  Isn't our job suppose to be adding value each and everyday?  Isn't that what we are being paid for?

What do you think?  Continually developing our leadership skills, as a small business owner, can be difficult.  Typically, we are the "leadership team" in our company.  How do we know if we are doing any of these things?  Good question!  The first step to develop your leadership skills further is to gain some awareness -- do this simple exercise:  Create a list of these 20 items.  For the next week monitor yourself.  Each time you catch yourself doing any one of these leadership flaws, place a hash mark next to the flaw.  What did you learn?  You may want to have your employees keep track too.  Wouldn't that be interesting -- see how many times they observe these flaws verses our own tracking.  This may provide you with some incredible insight!

To learn more, come to our February 4th Business Book Discussion to learn from other small business owners on what they learned and strategies to further develop your leadership skills.