The Top 5 Excuses Why Leaders Don't Lead

A thought-provoking list of possibly the Top 5 Excuses Why Leaders Do Not Lead:

1. I am leading! People feel they are leading others because they make the key decisions and have the final say. Unfortunately that is ownership, not effective leadership.
2. No time. Every leader is challenged to manage their time. Great leaders make developing people a priority over other activities.
3. People should know what to do. This is the assumptive leader. They think hiring people is like buying a television. It should just work right out of the package, rather than need training, support, direction and other leadership activities.
4. Limited leadership skills. This is reality. We all have gaps in our leadership skills. We have leadership tendencies, but not deep, broad skills because we have not been trained, mentored and invested enough time in developing our true ability to guide others. The question is, what are you going to do about it?
5. Limited, broken or non-existent talent management system. This is the easiest way to develop and sustain great leadership skills. Focus on building your systems for hiring, managing, developing and retaining superstars. Without a Systematic Power approach our leadership is inconsistent and limited in its effectiveness.

Meeting Ideas

TOP 5 EXCUSES is an opportunity to consider how to become a better leader. Your primary excuse for not fully developing your leadership skills may be different than one of these. I encourage you to identify your most common excuse so you can grow beyond it.

Whether you are an owner, executive, manager or team member with other responsibilities, you can be a leader who positively impacts the lives of others. Individually or as a group consider identifying your most common excuse so that you can overcome its ability to sidetrack your growth as a leader.

1. What are the 3-5 most common excuses I make to avoid investing more of my time in hiring, managing, developing and retaining great people?
2. Approximately what percentage of the time do I use each of these excuses?
3. Which of these excuses am I going to focus on eliminating from my life first?
4. Pilot an effort to make progress overcoming one excuse for 30-90 days with accountability from at least one other person.