9 Habits Leaders Need to Avoid, According to a Former Member of the Marine Corps

Instead, remember these two great phrases:

1. “I’m not sure about that. Let me find that answer and get back to you.” (Then make sure you do.)
2. “You’ve got a lot of experience in this area. What do you think?”

2. Delegate your budget to someone else

You probably have a budget to manage in your new leadership role. Math? Yuck! Just look for someone who has a desk and spreadsheet. Make sure you let someone else pay attention to all that for you.

If you only have a vague idea of what you have to spend, you can promise things to people even when the budget doesn’t support it.

If you run out of money, go over budget, or fail to deliver on the project, you’ve just set yourself up perfectly. You can blame someone else for mismanaging the money, or even blame those damn higher-ups for not giving you enough to work with!

What to do instead

In any leadership position, knowing the budget is key. You are responsible for good financial controls and making the best choices available with your resources.

If you don’t have enough budget experience, it’s okay to ask one of your direct reports. You can also reach out to the business office or seek additional professional training. Whatever you do – make sure you pay attention to the money.

3. Make being liked your primary goal

Do you know what people appreciate? A leader who desperately needs to be liked. When people say a leader needs to connect with staff, what they mean is that everyone should be your BFF. Maybe they’ll even give you friendship bracelets.

Nothing builds respect and confidence like knowing the person in charge of making hard decisions will avoid any choice that might upset someone. People will line up to work for you to make everyone like you. You definitely won’t see all your competent staff desperately running away.

What to do instead

Being in a leadership role means making unpopular decisions sometimes. In the most extreme cases of military leadership, it can mean potentially sending people to their death. Hopefully, that’s not true in your new leadership role.

It’s important to practice empathy and to connect with staff. Worse than desperately needing to be liked is actively working to be disliked. Still, you need to make the best decision for the organizational goals – even when that decision is unpopular. This takes planning and practice. Connect with a leader who you admire.

4. Tell everyone exactly what they want to hear

This is a close cousin to number three, but a truly awful leader can also do this from a manipulative standpoint. If you’re a master of listening and can determine exactly what each staff member (or your boss!) wants to hear, you can just say exactly that – even if it’s untrue!

With this strategy, you’ll be able to end potentially challenging conversations in record time! You’ll never have to work through uncomfortable moments or deal with an upset colleague. That’s worth the total, irreversible loss of trust that results.

What to do instead

Act with integrity. Don’t tell someone what they want to hear unless it’s true.

Also, don’t use ambiguous language or only share the positive. People deserve to know the reality, even when it’s hard. As Brene Brown says, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”

Young kids are masters of telling it like it is. If an eight-year-old can do it, so can you. Just do it with more tact.

5. Dodge ALL the blame

What’s the best way to make sure you are personally successful? Never let yourself get linked to anything bad! Did you overspend your budget? Your assistant didn’t track it well!

Make sure you take similar steps in every facet of the job.

• Project late? You weren’t given the resources to deliver on time!
• Total project failure? Incompetent staff!

You will absolutely be given another chance, even if your first one is a total and complete disaster. It wasn’t your fault!

What to do instead

You are responsible for every aspect of the program, project, or unit you manage. Any mistake or failure is ultimately your responsibility and no one else’s.

Any qualified, competent boss will see it that way. You might as well demonstrate integrity by owning it and acting accordingly. Even if the slip-up was a team member’s fault, own it in public and then have a private conversation.

You will be amazed at how quickly this approach builds respect and morale. It’s sadly far too uncommon.

6. Tell everyone how hard your job is

Is one of your direct reports talking about how hard a task you’ve given them is? Really connect by explaining, in great detail, the enormous pressures you’re facing. In particular, talk about how late you work, how little you sleep, and how stressed you are by the job. Commiseration!

People care about the struggles of the person newly appointed to lead them. This is doubly true if the person gets promoted or is paid more despite less experience.

What to do instead

No. One. Cares. Honestly. It’s a hard reality, but people don’t care if your job is hard if you are in a leadership role. They consider it part of the price you pay for higher wages and greater career prospects.

This doesn’t mean you can’t empathize and connect. It just means that you can’t do so by talking about how difficult your job is. This is not reassuring, inspiring, or connective.

Instead, do the hard work without complaint. People will appreciate it and be more likely to follow your model.

7. Talk about how impossible the team mission is

People are more motivated when they hear their new leader list all the barriers to reaching the team’s goal. Detail the obstacles, then challenge them to reach the goal by emphatically telling them that they can’t!

Develop and ship a new project by next quarter? (Good work, setting up that future blame strategy from #5 here!) No way you can do that with the current design flaws, production challenges, and employee absenteeism.

It’s a foolproof way to motivate your team by explicitly demotivating them and discouraging them from achieving the goal. At least no one will be surprised when you fail.

What to do instead

People need to believe they can be successful. Acknowledge challenges and express optimism that the team can overcome them.

Don’t go too far and pretend everything is fine or easy when it isn’t. Instead, list the barriers and then explain how you will work through them.

8. Constantly remind everyone you are the boss

I can’t express how experienced, competent, dedicated employees love hearing a newly minted leader talk about positional authority.

Don’t bother working collaboratively, talking about shared missions, or using group input processes. Do not defer to the hard-earned expertise of others. Instead, just end most conversations with, “I’m the boss.” If you want to go for the gold, tack on “…so you have to do what I say.”

If you see eyes roll and experience sudden discomfort, just chuckle and pretend it was a self-deprecating joke. They totally won’t notice. Besides, who cares if they do? You’re the boss; they have to do what you say.

What to do instead

Use positional authority sparingly. Inspire, motivate, supervise.

Real leaders don’t need to remind everyone that they’re in charge – they assume it and demonstrate competence, confidence, and multiple motivation strategies. Don’t accept insubordination or let poor behavior continue, but realize that rank is the most fragile form of leadership outside of the military (and often even inside).

9. Take ALL the credit

Every time your team gets a W on the board, make sure everyone knows it was because of you.

Issue communications or press releases about your extraordinary leadership leading to 10x results. People love Xing things these days, so get your name on that as often as possible! Proclaim that you inspired your direct report’s breakthrough idea with skilled coaching. Even better, outright claim that it was your idea in the first place!

As your reputation with other clueless leaders grows and you climb that heartless corporate hierarchy, your staff will adore you further. They’ll be glad to have their hard work used for your advancement. No one will resent you for taking their life’s work and using it to get a better office. You absolutely won’t be known as the egomaniacal self-promotional prick that no one wants to work for.

What to do instead

You WILL become known as the egomaniacal self-promotional prick that no one wants to work for. Good people will not join your future teams. You will attract other sycophantic self-promoters.

Here’s the truth – our culture always gives leaders credit for success, whether they actively claim it or not. Do yourself, and most importantly, your hard-working staff, a favor and actively give credit to others. Genuinely say, in the face of every success, “It wasn’t me. It was my team; I just supported them and got out of their way.”

Give credit for the brilliant idea to the person or team that was brilliant! Your team will appreciate it. And you’ll probably get the credit anyway. At worst, you’ve made the world a bit more bearable.

Habits Leaders Should Actually Practice

Hopefully, you want to be a great leader. Maybe you hope to build your career while treating others well and ensuring they benefit from their time working with you. If so, ignore the nine foolproof ways to fail and do their opposites instead:

• Acknowledge what you don’t know, and learn it quickly.
• Know your budget. Monitor it closely.
• Make the hard decisions even if others might not like them.
• Tell people the truth, not what they want to hear. Clarity is kind.
• Accept blame quickly and gracefully. Discuss underperformance in private.
• Do the hard work without complaint.
• Acknowledge challenges. Express optimism that you can overcome them. Share strategies to do so. Give your team hope.
• Use positional authority sparingly, if ever. Instead, learn multiple leadership strategies and lead with quiet confidence.
• Give credit generously. Never accept credit for the accomplishments of others.

What's your no. 1 piece of leadership advice? Share your answer in the comments to help other Fairygodboss members!